English Language Arts

Past Continuous/Past Progressive

Past Continuous/Past Progressive

Concept sheet | English Language Arts

Grade

1-5

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Past Continuous Common Uses
For Advanced Users: Additional Past Continuous Uses
Past Continuous Forms Reminder
See Also

Past Continuous Common Uses
For Advanced Users: Additional Past Continuous Uses
Past Continuous Forms Reminder

Past Continuous Common Uses

Rules

The past continuous tense (also called past progressive) expresses:

An ongoing action at a specific time in the past.

First use of the past continuous.

An ongoing action interrupted by another action in the past.

Second use of the past continuous.

Ongoing simultaneous actions in the past.

Third use of the past continuous.

Examples

An ongoing action at a specific time in the past

Past continuous affirmative sentence.

Yesterday at 8:00 am, Tom was walking to his favourite spot.

An ongoing action interrupted by another action in the past

Past continuous affirmative sentence.

He was sleeping when a loud noise woke him up.

Ongoing simultaneous actions in the past

Past continuous affirmative sentence

Nadia was running away while Tom was panicking in front of the destroyed house.

For Advanced Users: Additional Past Continuous Uses

For Advanced Users: Additional Past Continuous Uses

Past Continuous Forms Reminder

Affirmative Form

I	was	verb + ing
he/she/it
we you they	were

Negative Forms

I

was not

wasn't

verb + ing

he/she/it

we
you
they

were not

weren't

Question Form

was	I	verb + ing
	he/she/it
were	we you they

'

See Also