pastcontinuous(过去进行时英文版讲解)

Past Continuous Tense

1.The Past Continuous tense is an important tense in English. We use it

to say what we were in the middle of doing at a particular moment in the past.

2.Structure:

The past progressive tense(also sometimes called "past continuous") is formed by using was/were + main verb + ing (was/were doing), as in, "We were eating dinner when the phone rang."

Verbs usually cannot be used in past continuous tense：agree、

be、believe、belong、care、forge、hate、have、hear、know、like、love、mean、mind、notice、own、remember、seem、suppose、understand、want、wish, etc. Example:

Wrong：I was knowing the answer. (×)

Right：I knew the answer. ( √ )

3.Temporal Adverbials:

this morning、the whole morning、all day yesterday、from nine to ten last evening、when、while, etc.

subject auxiliary

verb

main

verb

(+) Positive

sentence

I was watching TV.

You were working hard. (-)He, she, was not helping Mary.

Negativ

it

e sentence

We were not joking.

Were you being silly ()General

question

Were they playing football

What was he/she/it eating ()Special

question

What were you doing

5.How to use the Past Continuous Tense

1)The Past Continuous tense expresses action at a particular

moment in the past. The action started before that moment but has not finished at that moment. For example, “y esterday I watched a film on TV. The film started at 7pm and finished at 9pm”. Thus, “At 8pm yesterday, I was watching TV.”

When we use the Past Continuous tense, our listener usually knows or understands what time we are talking about. Look at these examples:

I was working at 10pm last night.

What were you doing at 10pm last night

What were you doing when he arrived

(“when he arrived" is also a way of defining the time)

She was cooking when I telephoned her.

We were having dinner when it started to rain.

2)It's also common to use this tense to talk about two on-going actions

that were happening at the same time in the past, as in,

"While Justin Timberlake was finishing his new album, his fans were waiting for it to come out."

3)We can also use this tense to talk about actions in the past that

took place over time, as in,

"I couldn't sleep last night because dogs were barking the whole night."

NOTICE:

·when + short action (Past Simple)

·while + long action (Past Continuous