Practice Past Continuous Tense | Basic English Grammar Course

Hi. I’m Esther.

In this section, let's do a checkup for the past continuous tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

‘Last night they were blank at school.’

I want you to try to fill in the blank with the negative for the verb ‘stay’.

‘not stay’

What do you think it is?

Remember, for the negative of the past continuous,

all you have to do is put ‘not’ and then ‘verb-ing’ after the 'be' verb.

‘They were not staying at school last.’

‘Last night, they were not staying at school.’

The next sentence says,

‘Two days ago you blank soccer.’

Again try the negative for the verb ‘play’.

‘Two days ago blank not play soccer.’

In this case, the first thing that's missing is the ‘be’ verb.

If the subject is ‘you’, can you think of which be verb needs to be put in there?

The correct answer is ‘were’.

And then, we say ‘not’.

What happens after that?

Remember, ‘verb-ing’. So ‘you were not playing’

‘two days ago, you were not playing soccer’

You can also use a contraction and say,

‘You weren't playing soccer.’

Now try to find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘Yesterday, she were reading at home.’

hmmm

The subject of this sentence is ‘she’ so the ‘be’ verb to use is not ‘were’.

It's 'was'.

‘Yesterday, she was reading at home.’

In the next sentence it says, ‘Tomorrow, they were seeing their friends.’

hmmm

‘They’ and ‘were’

That's correct.

And we have the ‘verb-ing’

So what's the mistake?

Remember the past continuous is for the past.

‘Tomorrow’ is not the past.

So instead, we need to put a word that shows the past.

For example, I can say, ‘yesterday’.

‘Yesterday, they were seeing their friends.’

Let's move on.

Now, let's start a checkup of the ‘when’ usage of the past continuous tense.

Take a look at the first example.

It says, ‘Andrea and John’ blank when they bank hurt.’

Remember ‘when’ shows an interrupting action.

It needs to be used with the past simple tense.

So let's first look at the second blank.

‘When they blank hurt’

What's the past tense of the verb ‘get’?

The answer is ‘got’.

Now let's take a look at the action that was in progress in the past.

‘Andrea and John’ or ‘they’

Well what comes after ‘they’?

‘were’.

‘Andrea and John were’

Then remember we need to add -ing to the verb.

‘They were skiing’ or ‘Andrea and John were skiing when they got hurt’.

The next example says, ‘It blank not raining when the game blank’.

And I want you to use the verb ‘start’ for the second blank.

Take a look ‘when the game blank’ what's the past tense of ‘start’?

‘started’

Now let's look at the first part of the sentence.

The subject is ‘it’.

So what ‘be’ verb do we use for 'it'?

‘was’

‘It was not raining when the game started.’

Now find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘I wasn't study at the library yesterday’.

The subject here is ‘I’ and so the ‘be’ verb ‘was’ is correct.

Here there's a contraction, ‘I wasn't’ for ‘I was not’.

Now the problem is with the verb.

Remember we need to put ‘–ing’ at the end of the verb.

‘I wasn't studying at the library yesterday.’

And finally, ‘We did meet our friends last weekend.’

That sounds right, but remember we're doing the past continuous tense.

Take a look again.

The subject is ‘we’.

We need a ‘be’ verb.

‘were’

Then what happens?

Remember, we need to add an ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb,

so we take out ‘did’ and say, ‘We were meeting our friends last weekend.’

Let's move on.

Now, for this checkup, we'll look at the ‘while’ usage of the past continuous tense.

Take a look at the first example.

‘While I blank someone blank my bike.’

When we use ‘while’ in the past continuous tense,

we're showing that two actions happened at the same time in the past

or they were happening at the same time in the past.

So we need to use the past continuous for both actions.

‘While I blank’

I want you to use ‘shop’ in the first blank.

Remember, the subject here is ‘I’ so I need to use the ‘be’ verb ‘was’.

Then ‘verb-ing’.

‘While I was shopping’

Now ‘someone’ can be a ‘he’ or ‘she’.

Therefore, again we need to use ‘was’

and then the ‘verb-ing’ of ‘steal’.

‘While I was shopping, someone was stealing my bike.’

The next sentence says,

‘While he blank’

I want you to use the verb ‘cook’.

The subject is ‘he’ and so I need to use ‘was cooking’.

‘While he was cooking, his girlfriend was cleaning.’

Did you get that?

Let's move on.

Try to find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘Jane was looking for us while we get off the plane.’

The first part of the sentence is correct.

‘Jane was looking’

Now the second part of the sentence.

Notice it's not in the past continuous tense.

‘While we get off the plane’

So what we need to do is say, ‘were getting’.

‘Jane was looking for us while we were getting off the plane.’

The next sentence says, 'I was watching TV while my wife sleep’

Again this part of the sentence did not use the past continuous tense.

My wife is a ‘she’ and so I need to say ‘was sleeping’.

‘I was watching TV while my wife was sleeping.’

Great job, everyone. Let's move on.

Good job, everybody in learning the past continuous tense.

This tense can be a little difficult and a little tricky.

Especially when it comes to the ‘when’ and ‘while’ usage.

It'll take some practice to really master it, but I know you can do it.

Keep studying English and I'll see you in the next video.