José Fernando Murillo Rodríguez TE190456

Differention between past simple and progressive

The simple past and the past progressive, also past continuous, are used to
express actions in the past. We use the simple past as the narrative form of the
past to express completed, sequential actions. We use the past progressive to say
what was happening at a particular moment in the past, to set the scene and to
emphasise duration of a past action.

The simple past is a very common verb tense that is learned early on by English
language learners. The past progressive (also known as the past continuous), on
the other hand, can be tricky for students to learn because it is not commonly used
in English.
The simple past talks about something that happened before. It happened and it
finished. Some words are regular and just have -ed added at the end like walked,
helped, and played. Others are irregular and have many variations like ate, began,
and slept.
The past progressive talks about something that was happening before, but for a
period. It uses was or were + verb-ing like was eating or were playing. It gives a
background for something that was happening while a different event happened.
The questions

José Fernando Murillo Rodríguez TE190456

José Fernando Murillo Rodríguez TE190456

Use
Both tenses are often used in one sentence:
While we were sitting at the breakfast table, the telephone rang.
We were sitting at the breakfast table when the telephone rang.
• Past Progressive → we were sitting at the table
• Simple Past → the telephone rang.
The action in the Simple Past (pink) interrupts the action in the Past
Progressive (blue).
José Fernando Murillo Rodríguez TE190456

Examples
Past simple
1. I saw him two weeks ago
2. My friend came to visit me last summer
3. The last time I went to concert was in 2019
4. I went to the store
5. She wanted money
6. He didn’t play soccer
7. It worked well
8. We didn’t watch a movie
9. We played minecraft last night
10. In the past, I made a lot of mistakes
Past Progressive
1. Fernando was reading a comic yesterday evening.
2. She was listening spotify on the speaker
3. I was coming from the supermarket when I saw an accident
4. I was playing soccer with my friends when an stranger stole my ball
5. My sister were growing up quickly.
6. Her french was improving.
7. They were watching a Marvel movie
8. I was sleeping when my brother knocked on my door.
9. Froy was fighting when he broke her arm
10. Belen was cocking while im was drinking a beer