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.
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