Simple Past and Past Continuous

101 IRW

Simple Past

1. Used to talk about an action that started and finished at a specific time in the past.

Example

• I saw a movie yesterday.

2. Used to list a series of completed

actions in the past. These actions

happen 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on.

Example

• I finished work, walked to the beach, and

found a nice place to swim.

3. Used with a duration which starts and stops

in the past.

Example

• They sat at the beach all day.

4. Used to describe a habit which stopped in

the past. It can have the same meaning as

“used to.”

Example

• I studied French when I was a child.

Spelling Rules Regular Verbs

The Simple Past tense of most English

verbs (regular verbs) is formed by adding

"ed"/"d" to their base form.

(If the verb ends in "-e", we add "-d" to form the past

simple)

Example

• We arrived at 9:00 o'clock. = arrive + d

• We worked all morning. = work+ ed

Spelling Rules • If a regular verb ends in consonant + y

change y to i and add -ed: carry - carried, study - studied, fry - fried, try - tried

• If a one syllable regular verb ends in consonant + vowel + consonant double the final consonant and add -ed -- >

stop - stopped, plan - planned, rob - robbed, beg - begged

Irregular Verbs

There are also some verbs called irregular

verbs that have special past tense forms.

Example

• We went (go) to school yesterday.

Become Became Give Gave

Drive Drove Forget Forgot

Teach Taught Bring Brought

Leave Left Hear Heard

Buy bought See Saw

The Past Continuous

1. Used to indicate that a longer action in the past was interrupted. The interruption is usually a shorter action in the Simple Past.

Example

• I was watching TV when she called.

2. Used to show what somebody was doing at a particular time in the past.

Example

• They were playing tennis at 6:30 last night.

• Ahmed was playing football at this time yesterday.

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.

Example

• Short action while longer action

• Sarah cut herself while she was cutting the apple.

• Sometimes we use the past continuous tense to talk about two or more actions which were taking place at the same time in the past.

Example

• I was playing video games while my mother was cooking.

We use the past continuous to describe a longer action.

I spoke to Tom yesterday. I was speaking to Tom yesterday.

While vs. When

• When you talk about things in the past, "when" is most often followed by the verb tense Simple Past, whereas "while" is usually followed by Past Continuous. "While" expresses the idea of "during that time.“

Example

• I was studying when she called.

• While I was studying, she called.

Summary

• In the Simple Past, a specific time is used to show when an action began or finished.

• In the Past Continuous, a specific time only interrupts the action.