Past Continuous

'He was waiting for me when I got home.'

Why do we use the past continuous?

The past continuous (also known as the past progressive) is used to describe what we were doing a specific point in the past.

compare these two sentences:

'I played golf yesterday.' = (past simple) the action of playing golf is more important than the time it was happening.

'I was playing golf at 2pm.' = (past continuous) what was happening at that specific time is important. We do not know when the action started , or when it finished.

How to make the past continuous

Was/were + ing verb is the past continuous. Take a look at some past continuous example sentences:

'I was taking a bath at midnight.'
'Tom was walking his dog at 6am.'
'They were watching the news when I called.'

Now complete the sentences using the correct verbs.

• Simon was a DVD when I walked into the room.
• I was a meeting at lunchtime.
• I brought my umbrella because it was when I left the house .
• The children were already down in their chairs when the teacher came in.
• Ariana didn't hear me because she was to music on her stereo.
• She was her car slowly because she was nervous about having an accident.
• The fish were all in the pond.