Past simple and past continuous

Rob Hello. Welcome to 6 Minute Grammar with me, Rob.

Emma And me, Emma. Hello.

Rob In today’s programme we’re talking about the past simple and the past continuous tenses…

Emma Yes, we’ll look at when we use each tense…

Rob We’ll show you how to form the positive, negative and question forms of each one…

Emma And as usual, we’ll finish with a quiz.

Rob And first, here’s a quick reminder of the past simple. Hello Finn.

Finn Hello Rob.

Rob Could you give us an example please?

Finn Last night I saw the film ‘Titanic’.

Rob Ooh Titanic, what a movie! Finn saw it last night. So, we use the past simple for completed actions in the past.

Emma And we had the past simple of the verb see , which is the irregular form saw .

Rob And as we know, you just have to learn the irregular verbs.

Emma But the good news is that lots of verbs are regular, and to make them into the past simple, you just add e and d to the infinitive, like this:

Finn Hundreds of passengers jumped into the sea.

Rob Jump - jumped . Simple. To make past simple negatives, we add didn’t to the infinitive, like this:

Finn Sandra Bullock didn’t win an Oscar for Gravity.

Rob Now let’s look at past simple questions. Emma, did you see the news last night?

Emma Yes, I did.

Rob So, for the question, it’s: did plus the subject plus the infinitive .

Emma And the short answers are: Yes plus subject plus did : Yes, I did .

Rob Or: No plus subject plus didn’t : No, I didn’t .

Emma So that’s the past simple for completed actions in the past.

Rob Now, to talk about past activities, we can use the past continuous. Here’s an example:

Finn I was watching a movie on TV. It was raining. We were feeling very bored.

Emma Now, we can use the past continuous to talk about an activity that was already happening when something else happened, like this:

Finn Dad was cooking dinner when the police arrived. The children were watching TV when the officers came into the living room.

Rob Ooh the police! Very dramatic! Yes, think about one activity interrupting the other - the activity that was already happening is in the past continuous - Dad was cooking dinner …

Emma And the activity that interrupted it is in the past simple: the police arrived.

Rob So you can put the past simple and continuous together to talk about activities and actions that happened one on top of another.

Emma Remember those examples everyone - I’m going to test you later!

Rob OK. To make the past continuous, it’s was or were plus an i-n-g verb.

Finn Dad was cooking dinner. The children were watching TV.

Rob Now to make the negative past continuous, you just put wasn’t or weren’t in front of the -ing verb, like this:

Finn The baby wasn’t sleeping. The children weren’t playing games.

Rob Wasn’t sleeping and weren’t playing. Wasn’t and weren’t are short forms of was not and were not.

Emma Now for past continuous questions, it’s was or were , with the subject plus an i-n-g verb . And I’m going to demonstrate this by testing you on the examples we had before. Rob, was Mum cooking dinner?

Rob No, she wasn’t: Dad was cooking dinner.

Emma That’s correct: well done. Were the children playing games?

Rob No, they weren’t.

Emma Correct, well done again!

Rob For past continuous short answers it’s: Yes plus subject plus was , or: No plus subject plus wasn’t .

IDENT You’re listening to BBC Learning English dot com.

Emma Right, time for a quiz. I’m going to say a sentence and you have to choose the right verb form to go in the gap. Ready? OK. Number 1. When the phone rang, we a film. Is it a) watched or b) were watching? When the phone rang, we a film.

Rob It’s b) When the phone rang, we were watching a film.

Emma Good, number 2: Cate Blanchett an Oscar for Best Actress. Is it a) was winning or b) won? Cate Blanchett an Oscar for Best Actress.

Rob It’s b) Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for Best Actress.

Emma And here’s the final question. Ready? When the police , Dad was cooking dinner. Is it a) arrived b) were arriving? When the police , Dad was cooking dinner.

Rob When the police arrived, Dad was cooking dinner. Good old dad. Still cooking that dinner. What a hero!

Emma So, well done if you got those right. And don’t forget there’s lots more about tenses on our website at bbclearningenglish.com. Join us again for more 6 Minute Grammar.

Both Bye!