The Past Continuous Tense | Definition and Examples

grammar

THE PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE

A) The Past Continuous as a Past Equivalent of the Present continuous. It refers to an activity in progress, and suggests not only that this activity is temporary ( i.e. of limited duration ), but that it does not need to be complete:

-He WROTE a novel several years ago. He finished it.

-He WAS WRITING a novel several years ago. But i don't know, whether he finished it.

Just like the Present Continuous, the Past Continuous is used to express the Future in the Past.

COMPARE :

-I AM GOING to the theater this evening, I have the tickets. 

Present Continuous > Future

-She WAS BUSY packing, for she WAS LEAVING that night. 

The decision to leave had been made some time before = she planned to leave that night.

B) The Past Continuous is a convenient device to indicate a time span within which another event indicated by Simple Past can be seen as taking place:

-I WAS WORKING in garden, when the storm BROKE.

-My wife WAS MAKING tea, when our visitor ARRIVED.

Past Continuous = Background Sitting.

Past Simple = Plot advancing we generally have the description of a background, presented by the Past Continuous, suddenly we have the Simple Past the advancing of narration.

C) (Ing)  form. Politeness, Anger or rather incomplete action:

-What WERE you doing before you came here? More polite

-What did you do before you came here?

-What were you DOING in my room? You have no right to be there = the speaker is annoyed.

-What DID you do in my room? Could never give the same impression as the ing-form.

-She WAS DROWNING in the river. Incomplete: but somebody dived in and rescued her.

-She WAS DROWNED in the river. She is dead.