PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE | English grammar and exercises

hello everyone this is Andrew at Crown Academy of English today we are doing a grammar lesson about the past continuous tense so let's start I was walking to the train station when you called me so here is the past continuous tense and in fact in the same sentence we also have the past simple tense and today's lesson is about the past continuous so we are going to discuss this in more detail and you will learn the form and the common uses of the tense and at the end of the lesson there are exercises to test your understanding so let's look at the form so here is the sentence again I was walking to the train station when you called me I was walking you were walking he she it was walking we were walking you were walking and they were walking so the affirmative form is made up of the subject then there is the past form of the verb to be so this is the past form of the verb to be and then at the end we have the ing form of the verb so this is called the ing form okay and in terms of grammar we call this part of the verb we call this the auxiliary verb and this is the main verb okay so that is the affirmative form the negative form I was not walking to work when you called me so this is what changes this is what is new to the negative form we put the word not in between the auxiliary verb and the main verb I was not walking you were not walking he she it was not walking we were not walking you were not walking and they were not walking so we have the subject the past form of the verb to be then we have the word not and this is what makes it the negative and again we have the ing form of the verb and here it is walking okay so that is the negative form the negative form also has a contracted form so here is the full form that we have already seen and the contracted form is I wasn't walking you weren't walking he wasn't walking she wasn't walking it wasn't walking we weren't walking you weren't walking and they weren't walking so the contracted form we have n apostrophe T so the apostrophe indicates that we are missing a letter we are missing the letter O from the word not and as always we use the contracted form usually in in English okay spoken English we don't usually write it question form was she walking to the office when she called you was i walking were you walking was he she or it walking were we walking were you walking and were they walking so this time we have the past form of the verb to be the subject and the ing form of the verb with the question mark at the end to show that it is a question very important not to forget the question mark so the big difference is we simply change the order of the subject and the verb to be so the verb to be is first and then we have the subject other question forms with question words why was he shouting so here is the question word why and then we have the normal question form of the past continuous was he shouting with the question mark where was she going question word question form what was he eating the question word and the question form so the form here is we have a question sorry a question word either what where why who how and then we have passed form of the verb to be the subject and the ing form of the verb followed by the question mark at the end the ing form so what is the ing form well the basic rule is that for regular verbs we simply add the letters I ng to the base form so example the base form is walk and so the ing form is walking ing or clean becomes cleaning but this is only the rule for regular verbs there are lots of other rules and exceptions for irregular verbs and for all the other rules for the ing form I have another video it's a separate video okay and there is a link to this video at the end of this video ok so don't watch it now don't worry there is a link to this video at the end of this current video so I advise you to watch it after this video so let's look at the common uses when do we use a past continuous well the first example is to describe a long action in the past that started before a specific time okay so we define a specific time and also the long action is continuing after a specific time so the past continuous we describe a time that starts sorry we describe an action that starts before a specific time and continues after it example yesterday at 8 a.m. I was eating breakfast so this is the specific time yesterday at 8 a.m. and then we have the long action I was eating so let's look at a time chart this is now this is the present future and the past so here is the specific time it's a very short specific time 8 o'clock yesterday and here is the long action I was eating so we start to eat before 8 o'clock and we finish eating after 8 o'clock so this is the long action so yesterday at 8 a.m. I was eating breakfast so we are defining the action that we are in the middle of at a specific time another example at 3 p.m. he was working same situation 3 p.m. is the specific time and at that time he was working he was in the middle of work he was in the process of working he was working past continuous he started for example at 2 o'clock and he finished at 4 o'clock so at 3 o'clock he was working we also use the past continuous to describe a long action in the past that is interrupted by a shorter action and we use the past simple for the short action that interrupts the long action example while here is the same example from the beginning of this lesson remember I was walking to the train station when you called me so this is the short action at a specific time and this interrupts the long action ok so here is the call here is the phone call and at a specific time in the past this is a short action and when the call arrives we are walking to the train station I was walking to the train station when you called me okay so I started to walk for example here and I carry on I continued walking after the call I am in the process of walking when you call so we use the past continuous and we can also change the order so we can also say when you called me I was walking to the train station so these two sentences they are both correct and they both mean exactly the same thing so if you notice when we say when we use the past simple okay so when we introduce the clause of you called using the past simple then we use when when plus the past simple another example I was living in London when I met Jane so this is the long action and this is the short action at a specific time okay so this is the past simple this is the the past continuous I was living and we can change the order when I met Jane I was living in London okay and when plus the past simple or we also have another way we can say this we can also say while I was living in London I met Jane okay and we can change the order I met Jane while I was living in London okay so these four sentences one two three four they are all correct they all mean the same thing okay so the difference is with the past continuous we use the word while so we have while plus the past continuous or when plus the past simple and we do this to join and both actions to join the long action with the short action to connect them so when plus past simple or while plus the past continuous okay we also use the past continuous to set which means describe the scene in a story before the real action starts and we use the past simple for the real action so we see this often in books or magazines or articles so for example Superman was walking in the park a family was playing football and dogs were barking so this is just the scene of the story it is the background of the story it is a general description of the scene of a story and then the real action starts suddenly a man run towards him so this is the main action in the story and that is why we use the past simple so the past continuous for the background for the scene and then the real action past simple we can use the word always with the past continuous to describe an annoying habit in the past okay so the past continuous with always to describe an annoying habit or an annoying repeated action in the past so there is a negative feeling to this use example nobody liked the manager he was always shouting okay so we are not only stating a fact here we are also giving a judgement giving it an opinion there is a real negative feeling to this sentence David was always smoking okay so we are in a way we are judging David okay we are giving a negative judgment so always and it goes between the auxiliary verb be and the main verb in the past continuous okay always is in the middle several actions at the same time so we use the past continuous to describe actions that happen at the same time and these are obviously actions in the past and they are actions which have the same length so they are both long actions example while Mark was washing the car Jane was reading and Claire was painting while I was cooking while I was cooking dinner so notice that both clauses both actions are in the past continuous and we join them with the word while either at the beginning while Mark was washing or at the end while I was cooking dinner okay and notice if we have while at the beginning then we must write a comma here there is a comma that we must write because there is a pause but here if we have while in the second part there is no comma okay non-continuous verbs so there are some verbs in English which do not have a continuous form most of the time these are stative verbs and here is a list of common verbs that do not have a continuous form okay so love hate no like and there are others example the chocolate cake was nice I was wanting another slice that is wrong okay because this is a stative verb and stative verbs do not have a continuous form the chocolate cake was nice I wanted another slice that is correct we must use the past simple okay so I recommend that you look in a grammar book and you look for stative verbs and these verbs do not have a continuous form okay exercise put the verbs in brackets into the past continuous affirmative for example when I woke up this morning the birds well the answer is when I woke up this morning the birds were singing the birds were singing question 1 and I will give you a few seconds the answer is the telephone rang while I was having a shower question 2 they were cooking dinner when we arrived okay exercise to put the verbs in brackets into the past continuous question for example the answer is was it raining when you left the party was it raining when you left the party question one the answer is I saw you and Mark last night in London where were you going question two the answer is what was he doing when I called him what was he doing when I called him exercise three put the verbs in brackets into the past continuous negative form use the contracted form example the answer is gene was called because she wasn't wearing a hat question 1 the answer is I'm sorry I didn't call you last night my telephone wasn't working my telephone wasn't working question two the answer is sorry what did you say I wasn't listening I wasn't listening so that is the negative form in the contracted form okay so that is the end of the lesson here is the other lesson that I mentioned during this video so this video contains all the rules for how to write the ing form and here are some other videos which you might be interested in so you simply just click on the screen to start the video okay thanks for watching my name is Andrew at Crown Academy of English I will see you very soon bye bye

Channel: Crown Academy of English

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Keywords: past continuous tense, past continuous, past continuous rules, past continuous form, past continuous spelling, English past tense, english grammar rules, english grammar, ESL, English lessons, Crown Academy of English, cours d'anglais, grammaire anglaise

Id: TGwh9BvpE0o

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 03 2015