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The Past Continuous Tense

We use the past continuous tense to talk about an action that was in progress at a
particular time in the past. For example,

• Taniya was completing her homework last evening.
• We were chatting about the show we had watched on Netflix.

Past continuous
• for actions that were going on at a particular time in the past
• for parallel actions and for repeated actions, using always

Affirmative Negative sentences Interrogative sentences
sentences
With question word
I was singing. I was not/wasn’t singing. Was I singing? What was I singing?
You were You were not/weren’t Were you What were you
singing. singing. singing? singing?
He was not/wasn’t What was he
He was singing. Was he singing?
singing. singing?
She was She was not/wasn’t Was she What was she
singing. singing. singing? singing?
It was not/wasn’t
It was singing. Was it singing? What was it singing?
singing.
We were We were not/weren’t Were we What were we
singing. singing. singing? singing?
They were They were not/weren’t Were they What were they
singing. singing. singing? singing?

Comparison: Simple Past and Past Continuous

We use the simple past tense to talk about an action that happened in the past. We
use the past continuous tense to talk about an action that took place in the past and
was interrupted by another action. For example,
• We finished lunch at 1:30 p.m. (action in the simple past)

• We were finishing lunch when she came in. (action in the past continuous
interrupted by action in the simple past)

We use when, as and while to connect the past continuous and the simple past in
a sentence.

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