General English

Past Simple & Past Continuous

 What is past simple tense?

The past simple tense shows that an action started and

completed in the past and has no relevance to the present
time at all.
 Past simple structure

They were They weren’t Were they

friends. friends. friends?
Past simple structure
Past simple structure
 Past simple use
The past simple is used to express:

To express a finished action in Actions that follow each

the past other in a story
Mary walked into the
room and stopped.
John left two minutes She listened carefully.
ago. She heard a noise
coming from…..

To express habits in the past

When I was young, I

watched lots of
television every day
after school.
 Time expressions
yesterday

two days ago

in the past
four days

last week
month When I was child
year

in 2019
2007
 Examples
 Our local high school held a car wash to raise money for the band.

 I felt scared when the power went out during the thunderstorm last night.
feel luz, energia

 I really appreciate when you gave me half your lunch yesterday.

movie

 Dad took me to the movies and out for pizza for my birthday.
take cinema
Spelling rules for regular verbs
List of irregular verbs
 What is past continuous tense?

The past continuous (also called past progressive) is a

verb tense which is used to show that an
ongoing past action was happening at a specific moment of
interruption, or that two ongoing actions were happening at
the same time.
Past continuous (progressive) structure
Past continuous use (1)
Past continuous use (2)
Past continuous use (3)
Past continuous use (4)
Time expressions
Time expressions
Spelling rules for adding -ing