International school of finance technology and science theme: Past Continuous isft – 2023

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF FINANCE TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Theme: Past Continuous
ISFT – 2023

The past continuous tense, also known as the past progressive tense, describes ongoing actions in the past, such as I was writing my research paper all night. It uses the same construction as the present continuous tense except with the past tense of the verb to be.

I
was playing
badminton
at this time yesterday.
She
was cycling
at 9:00am yesterday.
They
were playing
table tennis
at 6:30 last night.
was / were
verb+ing
We often use
the past continuous and past simple tenses
in the same sentence.
We do this when we want to talk about
a shorter activity that happened
during a longer activity in the past.
The past continuous tense shows a continuous action that began in the past. It is the past tense version of the present continuous, which also describes ongoing actions. The present and past continuous are very similar, but the past continuous uses was and were, the past tense of to be.

Verbs you cannot use in the past continuous tense

As we explain in our grammar guide, there is a certain type of verb that cannot be used in any continuous tense, including the past continuous tense. These are called stative verbs, also known as state-of-being verbs or, fittingly, non-continuous verbs.

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