past continuous Online version The past continuous is formed from the past tense of be with the -ing form of the verb: We use the past continuous to talk about the past: for something which continued before and after another action for something that happened before and after a particular time by Maria Fernanda Silva Cayambe 1 past continuous 2 past simple tense 3 sentences from the past continuous 4 sentences from the past simple tense 5 Past Continuous and Past Simple 6 forms for something which continued before and after another action for something that happened before and after a particular time to show that something continued for some time for something that was happening again and again: something that happened once in the past something that happened again and again in the past something that was true for some time in the past we often use phrases with ago with the past tense My head was aching. I was practising every day, three times a day. The children were growing up quickly. Did you live abroad? When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day. I lived abroad for ten years. Did she play tennis when she was younger? The most common use of the past continuous tense is to talk about something that was happening around a particular time in the past 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. Often, the ‘action’ described by the past simple tense interrupts the ‘situation’ described by the past continuous tense With most verbs the past tense is formed by adding -ed 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:
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