Name: Past Simple and Past Continuous Tense - English Grammar Lesson | Learn English With Michelle
Uploaded: 2020-03-28T09:45:42.000Z
Duration: 10 min 4 s
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Past continuous

Hi guys, welcome to the lesson, You know what, ‘I was eating biscuit before I started this

Past simple

lesson’ and ‘in the morning I ate breakfast’, what's the difference between these two sentences,

do we have the same tenses? No, these two sentences talk about the past, but one is

past continuous and the other is past simple. Don't get too confused, just stay with me

in this lesson to solve the puzzle of “past continuous” and “past simple”. So guys

here we have with us certain sentences that will help you understand how to talk about

past tense using these tenses. So let's look at the first sentence, “yesterday Carin

and Jim played tennis”, do you think it's past continuous or past simple? Well, because

the main verb in the sentence has an “ed”, that's why this is past simple. But what if

this verb had “ing”, then it would be past continuous. But in this case it is past

simple. Right, so if I ask you what time were they playing tennis? Let's say, they were

playing tennis from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., so we'd say they played tennis yesterday from

10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. But if I ask you what were they doing at 10:30? Here, what

were they doing at 10:30 a.m.? You'd say they were playing tennis at 10:30 a.m. But why

would we say, ‘they were playing’ instead of saying, ‘they play tennis’ at 10:30

a.m. That's because we are talking about an action that was going on in the past. We are

talking about, we’re in the middle of an action that was going on in the past. So this

is in middle of an action. Middle of an action in the past. So this is where the action started

and this is where the action finished. Let's try to draw a timeline for this, alright,

so this is now, this is future and here we have the past. This is one moment in the past

and this is another moment in the past. But when something happens in the middle of an

action, before it started and until it finished, that is where we use the “past continuous

tense”. So Jim and Carin were playing tennis at 10:30, as you can see here, this is past

continuous tense because we have the “ing”. Now let's look at the next sentence that we

have, “I waved to Helen”, okay, so ‘waved’ is past simple because we have the “ed”

form of the verb, okay we are talking about one action in the past, “I waved to Helen,

but she wasn't looking”, so this means that we are talking about something that is happening,

she wasn't looking all this while, we are talking about the middle of that action. So

this is past continuous. Did you notice something peculiar? The difference between this sentence

and this sentence, here we say, “they were playing tennis”, but here we say, “she

wasn't looking” why do we use this ‘was’ and ‘were’? What's the whole confusion

about? Nothing difficult. So we used ‘were’ with, oh, sorry. ‘he/she/it’ – ‘was’,

okay? Third-person singular. ‘I/we/you and they’ – ‘were’, right? That's the

reason we use, ‘wasn't looking’, that's why we used ‘was’ here and ‘were’

with they, okay? Now let's look at the next sentence that we have, “Matt phoned while

we were having dinner”. So there is an action that is going on, which one is that? ‘Having

dinner’, okay? So they were eating dinner and the action was going on, but something

happened in the middle of that action and what happened? ‘Matt phoned’, that means

‘Matt called’… So whenever an action happens, in the middle of something else that's

when we use, past simple and also past continuous together. So if you're studying and one of

your friends calls to you, you could say, “Rachel called while I was studying”,

but be careful, we will say, “I was” and not “I were”, okay? Great. “I was walking

along the road when I saw Dave. So I stopped, we had a chat.” Okay, this is interesting,

we have so many actions here, “I was walking”, okay? - action one and this is past continuous

“along the road when I saw David” - second action, but this is past simple. “So I stopped

and we had a chat” we have two more actions in this. So whenever some actions, follow

the other actions in the past we use, past simple to talk about them. So ‘I was walking

along the road when I saw David’, - one action, ‘then I stopped’ - another action

and then “we had a chat” this is another action and that's why we are using the past

simple and not the past continuous. Now we have the last sentence with us, “I was enjoying

the party, but Chris wanted to go home.” Should we say, ‘he wanted to go home’

or ‘wanting to go home’? What if we say, but ‘Chris was wanting to go home’, will

that be correct? “I was enjoying the party, but Chris was wanting to go home.” No, that's

incorrect. We'd rather say, ‘Chris wanted to go home’ and this is because, we use

the simple past about an action in the past. It's a single action that happened in the

past, not something that was going on and the word ‘want’, is usually used in the

past simple, it's never used in the past continuous and the same applies for the word, ‘know’,

you could say that, “we were good friends, and I knew her for five years”. You wouldn't

say, ‘I was knowing her for five years’, which will be incorrect. So, ‘know’ and

‘want’ are always used in the simple past, like this.

Okay, I hope you learned enough about the simple past and the past continuous and now

the puzzle is solved for you. Please come back for more grammar lessons, this is Michelle