Past Continuous. Like the present continuous, the past continuous is formed using “to be” with “verb+ing”. However, as this is a past tense, “to be” is changed into the past (“was” or “were”) while the present participle (“verb+ing”) remains. Past continuous positive form. To form the past continuous, we use the was / were form of the verb "to be" plus the infinitive of the verb plus an -ing ending. Examples: She was go ing to school. You were all do ing the chores together. He was see ing a new girl last month. Sadly, she was play ing games with me. The continuous/progressive tenses are used for an event which is not complete, or is temporary or changing. (N.B. The word 'continuous' is used in British and Australian grammar books, while US grammar books use the word 'progressive' for these tenses.) Here is a timeline to show you some tenses commonly used in academic writing: Simple and It is important to learn how to use them properly at this expanding stage of English where there is more focus on academic tasks and language functions. These Past Continuous Exercises teach how to talk about these actions in the past. About 20 minutes. Learning how to use the past continuous. Expanding stage of learning English. Look at the 1 Answer. The second verb, to look should be in past progressive. It's about an action that was (or in this case was not) going on during another action. The first could go either way, depending on context. Is there some other activity going to be mentioned that is also located in time during the apple theft? 1. What, when you saw him? (the man / to read) was the man reading. 2. Who at 5 o'clock yesterday? (you / to wait for) were you waiting for. 3. What, when you opened the door? (the students / to do) were the students doing. The past continuous tense is written with the past tense of the auxiliary verb be (was/were) and with the –ing (present participle) form of the main verb. We can use past continuous tense to talk about an action or event in the past that was interrupted by something. The past continuous describes an unfinished or incomplete action in the past. GmFgn.

past continuous tense while examples