Past Continuous Tense

A. Form

To form the past continuous tense you need:

- the past tense of the verb be = was/were (not)

and
- another verb with -ing ending (reading, watching, etc.)

! Learn this pattern: was/were (not) + verb + ing

Be aware of the agreement between the subject and the form of the verb
be (Dejte si pozor na shodu podmětu s přísudkem):

I was watching we were working

you were sitting you were learning
he/she/ it was waiting they were standing

Questions – formed by inversion (přehozením slovosledu podmětu

s přísudkem)
e.g. She was standing at the bus stop.
Q: Was she standing at the bus stop?

Negatives – not is added to the verb be

e.g. We were waiting for him.
N: We were not (weren´t) waiting for him.

B. Spelling
 1. If the verb ends in –e, it is dropped when –ing is added:

e.g. dance – dancing, wave – waving

! If the verb ends in –ee, only –ing is added:

e.g. see – seeing, agree - agreeing

2. If the verb ends in –ie, it is changed to –y and followed by –ing ending

e.g. die – dying, lie – lying

3. If a one-syllable verb ends in a short vowel and a consonant, this

consonant is doubled:
e.g. stop – stopping, plan – planning, run – running, spin – spinning

C. Use

1. The most common use of this tense is to talk about events which
were in progress at a particular past moment:
e.g. What were you doing yesterday at seven p.m.?
I was chatting with my friend on the phone.
At 6.30 we were sitting on the train.

2. It is used to set the scene and provide the background for a story:

e.g. It was 6 o´clock and darkness was falling.

She looked out of the kitchen window. The children were playing
in the garden and her husband was cutting the grass.

However, to describe actions happening one after another, the past

 simple is normally used:
e.g. She sat down on the sofa, turned the TV on and watched
a movie.

3. It is often used to describe an event which was in progress when

another event happened. The event which interrupted the activity in
progress is described in past simle tense.

e.g. He was going 160 km/h when the police stopped him.
I was working on the computer when the screen went off.
She was running downstairs when she slipped and fell.
When she arrived I was watching the news.
The phone rang while I was taking a shower.

4. It is used to describe two (or more) events which were in progress at

the same time in the past.

e.g. She was making dinner while the father was playing with the
children.

5. Past continuous is not used with stative verbs (verbs which do not
express actions – love, hate, need, know, remember, etc.)

Remember:
The past continuous (like other continuous tenses) is used for
temporary actions and situations. To talk about longer, permanent
situations, the past simple is used.
e.g. It happened while I was living in London last year.
I lived in London for ten years when I was a child.