The past continuous tense

1. Form

The past continuous tense is formed by the past tense of the verb to be + the present participle:

I was working I wasn’t working Were you working?

2. Main Uses of the Past Continuous Tense

A. We use the past continuous to say that someone was in the middle of doing something at a certain time. The action or situation had already started before this time but hadn’t finished.

Little Mary came in. She was eating an ice-cream cone.

This time last year I was living in Brazil.

The past continuous does not tell us whether an action was finished or not. Perhaps it was finished, perhaps not.

Tom was cooking dinner. = He was in the middle of cooking the dinner and we don’t know whether he finished cooking it.

Tom cooked the dinner. = He began and finished it.

B. We often use the past continuous (I was doing) and the past simple (I did) together to say that something happened in the middle of something else, in other words when a shorter action interrupted a longer one:

Tom burnt his hand when he was cooking the dinner.

It was raining when I got up.

But to say that one thing happened after another (in other words there is a sequence of actions), use the past simple:

Yesterday evening Tom was having a bath when the phone rang. He got out of the bath and answered the phone.

3. Other Uses of the Past Continuous Tense

А. We can use the Past Continuous for repeated actions which are temporary, only for a period:

My car was serviced. I was travelling to work by bus that week.

When we talk about longer, more permanent situations we use the Simple Past. Compare:

It happened while I was spending my holiday in Africa. I spent ten years in Africa when a child.

В. We can use the Past Continuous for a past arrangement.

I was busy packing things as I was leaving for the country.

С. Sentences with always, continuously, etc., in the Past Continuous mean ‘very often’ or ‘too often’:

Do you remember Tom? ~ He was always quoting Shakespeare.

D. Another use of the Past Continuous is to stress that an activity was in progress at every moment during a period of time:

They were quarrelling the whole time they were together.

E. The Past Continuous is not the normal tense for talking about repeated or habitual actions. The Past Simple is usually used with this meaning:

I rang the bell six times.

However, the Past Continuous is possible if the repeated actions form a ‘background’ for the main action: At the time he wrote his first review he was going to the theatres a lot and was also visiting art exhibitions.