How to Use the Past Continuous Tense in English

The past continuous tense has a few other names in the English language. You can also call it the continuous past, the past progressive, or the progressive past. So many names can make this verb tense seem confusing, but it really isn’t too difficult.

What is past continuous?

The past continuous tense uses the past tense verb form of “to be” (was/were) with the present participle of a verb (the verb’s -ing form). It refers to an action or situation in the past that continued for a period of time. The length of time doesn’t matter. It could have been happening for a few seconds or for many years. But we use the past continuous to emphasize that something was in progress. For example, “Yesterday afternoon, I was sleeping,” or, “The dogs were playing in the garden.”

Past continuous vs. past simple

We do not use the past continuous tense when we want to emphasize that an action or situation is already finished, even though it may be. For that purpose, we use the past simple tense. When you have the option of using the past continuous, you usually also have the option of using the past simple.

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