The Past Continuous / Past Progressive Tense – Uso y estructura

Structure

Positive form

Subject + was/were + (-ing) + Complement

Examples:

-          Michael was watching the World Cup  match.
-          They were working all night long.
-          Josh and Silvia were talking about getting married.

Negative form

Subject + wasn’t/weren’t + (-ing) + Complement

Examples:

-          John wasn’t eating because he was feeling sick.
-          Jeff wasn’t watching TV.
-          My parents weren’t having a good time because it was very cold in Canada

Question Form

(Question Word) + was/were + Subject + (-ing) + Complement

-          What were you doing last night at around 8:00pm?
-          Was Jim doing his homework?
-          Were they sleeping all morning?

Conclusions:

-The complete structure: (TABLE #1)

- Past continuous is very similar IN STRUCTURE to the Present Continuous tense. The only difference is that in the present continuous we use the verb to be in the present (am/is/are) but with the past continuous we use the verb to be in the past (was/were)

Compare (TABLE #2)

Present Continuous	Past Continuous
They are  writing	They were writing
Pedro isn’t eating	Pedro wasn’t eating
Where is he staying?	Where was he staying?

-          We do not use the auxiliary DID with the past continuous.

USE

We use the past continuous to talk about an action that was in progress at a certain time in the past, an action at some point in the past between its beginning and end

Example: He was working in the garden at 7 o’clock this morning.

The past continuous is used to describe an action that we were “in the middle of” at a time in the past.
-          I was watching TV at 8:00pm. (I was “in the middle of watching TV” at 8:00)
-          Miguel was cooking at noon. (At that time, Miguel was “in the middle of cooking”)

It is important to remember this concept so that in our next lesson we can compare and contrast the past continuous with the past simple.