Past Progressive – Grammar Verb Tenses

Ellii Past Progressive What are verb tenses? Verb tenses show the time that an action takes place. The simple past and the past progressive are verb tenses. For short past actions, we use the simple past. For long, continuing past actions, we use the simple past or the past progressive. For example, in the sentence “I called my friend at 9:00 pm last night,” the simple past verb “called” is short action. In the sentence talked to my friend for two hours last night," the simple past verb "talked" is long action. In the sentence was talking to my friend for two hours last night," the past progressive verb “was talking” is also long action. Using the past progressive helps to emphasize that an action is long. How do we form the past progressive in English? We use “was” or “were,” which are the past forms of the Be verb, and an -ing verb. For example: He was walking to school. They were waiting for me. The student was taking test. The students were eating lunch. There are two common reasons to use the past progressive. We use the past progressive to show when short past action interrupts long past action. “When” is common time marker for this use. For example: was watching TV when the power went out last night. The children were doing science experiment when the fire alarm rang. It started to rain when she was walking to school. We also use the past progressive to show two long past actions taking place at the same time. “While” is common time marker for this use. For example: was watching TV while you were studying. Juan was playing the guitar while Maria was singing. While the teacher was writing on the board, the students were talking. What are clauses? clause contains subject and verb. An independent clause can stand alone as complete sentence, while dependent clause can’t stand alone. For example, in the sentence “I was watching TV when the power went out,” the independent clause is “I was watching TV” and the dependent clause is “when the power went out.” Did you know that we can reverse the order of the clauses with no difference in meaning? Note that we need comma when dependent clause starts the sentence. Let’s look at few more examples. It started to rain when she was walking to school. When she was walking to school, it started to rain. The students were talking while the teacher was writing on the board. While the teacher was writing on the board, the students were talking. Juan was playing the guitar while Maria was singing. While Maria was singing, Juan was playing the guitar. Look at the picture and say or write sentence using simple past or past progressive verbs. Use past progressive verbs whenever it’s possible to do so. For example: He was climbing ladder when he fell. Now you try! They were singing in the car while he was driving. We were hiking when it started to rain. She was watching movie while her parents were sleeping. When the phone rang last night, was making dinner. While my sister was studying, my brother was watching TV. Thanks for watching! Ellii