Often, the ‘action’ described by the past simple tense interrupts the ‘situation’ described by the past continuous tense
I lived abroad for ten years.
for something that happened before and after a particular time
My head was aching.
I was practising every day, three times a day.
The children were growing up quickly.
With most verbs the past tense is formed by adding -ed
We often use the past continuous and the past simple tense together. When this happens, the past continuous describes a longer, ‘background’ action or situation and the past simple describes the action or events.
for something that was happening again and again:
we often use phrases with ago with the past tense
Did you live abroad?
something that was true for some time in the past
Did she play tennis when she was younger?
something that happened again and again in the past
for something which continued before and after another action
When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day.
call >> called; like >> liked; want >> wanted; work >> worked
But there are a lot of irregular past tenses in English. Here are the most common irregular verbs in English, with their past tenses:
something that happened once in the past
to show that something continued for some time
The most common use of the past continuous tense is to talk about something that was happening around a particular time in the past
