Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Past Simple and Past Continuous
The Past Simple and Past Continuous
Past continuous
Use, form and structure
Past Simple We use the Past Simple tense to narrate:
The Stone Age lasted from around 2.5 million years ago to about
5,000 years ago.
Early humans developed the skill of making fire and later discovered
how to create tools from stone.
The Stone Age humans lived in caves for shelter and had a primitive
and rugged appearance.
Past Simple
Form (Affirmative):
Regular verbs: Subject + verb + -ed (e.g., I
played)
Irregular verbs: Subject + irregular verb
(e.g., I went)
Form (Negative):
Subject + did not (didn't) + base form of the
verb (e.g., I didn't play)
Form (Questions):
Did + subject + base form of the verb (e.g.,
Did you play?)
Examples:
Affirmative: She studied English last night.
Negative: They didn't go to the party.
Questions: Did you watch the movie yesterday?
Past We use the Past Continuous tense to:
Continuous
(verb + -ing) (e.g., I was studying)
Form (Negative):
Subject + was/were not + present participle
(e.g., They weren't working)
Form (Questions):
Was/Were + subject + present participle
(e.g., Were you sleeping?)
Examples:
Affirmative: He was studying when the phone
rang.
Negative: We weren't playing basketball at that
time.
Questions: Was she cooking dinner when you
arrived?