Grammar: Simple Past and Past Continuous

Welcome students! Today we are going to explain the difference between simple past and
past continuous in affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. Besides, we are going to
see regular and irregular verbs.

SIMPLE PAST:

Let's remember! In simple past, the action started and finished at a specific time in the past.
The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or
existed before now.

Let's see these examples:

For affirmative sentences, we have:

- Martha made an effort last semester.
- Carlos took an intensive course.
Remember, we use the simple past in an affirmative sentence.

For negative sentences, we have:

- Martha didn't make enough effort last semester.
- Carlos didn't take an intensive course.
Remember, in negative senteces we use the auxiliary didn't and the verb in base form.

For interrogative sentences, we have:

- Did Martha make enough effort last semester?
- Yes, she did.
- No, she didn't.

- Did Carlos take an intensive course?

- Yes, he did.
- No, he didn't.

Remember:
For interrogative sentences we use the auxiliary did and the verb goes in base form.
And in short answers, we use the auxiliary did for affirmative, and didn’t for negative.

Look at these other examples and listen to the pronunciation of the verbs in past tense:
- My tutor helped me a lot and solved all my doubts about using Canvas and Zoom.
- I attended classes online last semester.
- A: At last, I memorized my Final Project.
- B: Yeah, I learned it by heart, too.
- We’re successful professionals because we studied at UTP.
Here we have a group of verbs.
What do they have in common? Let's see.
Helped
Attended
Learned
Memorized
Solved
Studied

First of all, they are in past. Also, they’re regular verbs because they end in –ED, -D, -IED.

Here we have 5 spelling rules for regular verbs you have to know.
1. Most verbs add -ED.
2. Verbs ending in E add -D.
3. Verbs ending in vowel plus Y, add -ED.
4. Verbs ending in consonant plus Y. Drop Y, add -IED.
5. One syllable verbs, ending in consonant vowel consonant, double the last consonant.
And add -ED.

Let’s see more examples:

- A: I really had a hard time in my last semester.
Because of work, I didn´t have enough time to do any homework.
B: I’m sorry to hear that.
- I fell behind with my studies.
- That’s why I took a break last year.
- My virtual course was good.
- In fact, it was better than last semester!
- Thank goodness, I kept up with technology.

Let me introduce irregular verbs.

Remember that the past tense of irregular verbs does not follow a rule.

Let's read the first five verbs.

Be – was/were
Have – Had
Make – made
See – saw
Read – read

Here, there are some time expressions we use to talk about situations at a specific time in
the past.

- Yesterday
- Yesterday night
- Last week
- Last month
- Last year
- Last Sunday
- A year ago
- Two years ago
PAST CONTINUOUS

Now let's talk about past continuous.

We use past continuous to talk about an action that was in progress at a specific time in
the past.

Look at the example and identify the usage of past continuous in it.
"I was cleaning at 10 AM yesterday." The action was in progress at 10 AM. It was not
finished.

Let's see some other examples in past continuous:

- I was working part time at a law firm last year.
- I was participating in the discussion forum as part of my mandatory activities yesterday.

Past continuous and simple past

And when do we use both tenses?

We use past continuous with simple past to describe an action that was interrupted by
another action.

Let's see this example to understand it better:

“Jack was reading when the phone rang.”

“Jack was reading…” (The action was in progress, not finished)

“…the phone rang.” (This action interrupted the action in progress)

Look at these other examples:

-We were attending face-to-face classes, when the pandemic started.
The action was interrupted.

-The teacher was giving feedback, when a student arrived.

The action was interrupted.

And finally, check at the examples in past continuous: affirmative, negative and
interrogative sentences:

Affirmative sentences:
- I was playing.
- You were playing.

Negative sentences:
- I wasn't playing.
- You weren't playing.

Interrogative sentences
- Was I playing?
- Were you playing?

Thank you for your attention. Continue checking your materials you have on Canvas this
week.