THE PAST PROGRESSIVE

TENSE IN ENGLISH

The past progressive (or continuous) tense is formed –

by using the past tense of ‘to be’ with the

present participle of the verb you want to use.

The past tense of ‘to be’ is either 'was' or 'were' –

I was, you were, he was, she was, it was, we were, you were, they were.

Examples:

I was reading a book.

You were watching television.

They were walking home.

When do we use the past progressive tense?

The circumstances in which we use the past progressive tense are very simple:

It is used to express what was happening, and continuing to happen, at a specific time in the past.

Like the past perfect, it is a reporting, or story-telling, tense relating to a fixed time in the past. I describe it to my younger students as an event that was happening when a flash of lightning struck. Also, like the past perfect, it usually accompanies a simple past tense.

In each of the examples below, the simple past tense (in bold) is the lightning flash. The past progressive form is shown in red.

When you called me I was cooking lunch.

He arrived when she was washing her hair.

I reached the church as the ceremony was starting.

He was playing golf when he received the news.

We were waiting for the bus when she saw us.

The people were watching as he climbed the wall.

Ambulances were waiting as they evacuated the town.

In common with the past perfect, the past progressive doesn’t make much sense if used in isolation.

For example, taking the first two examples above –

I was cooking lunch.

She was washing her hair.

The ‘story’ is not complete – our reaction is, ‘And so?’  ‘What next?’

Of course sentences like these, lacking any reference to a past event, will be perfectly good if we can see an implied or related ‘period of time’, usually in a preceding question –

Thus, if someone asks, ‘What were you doing when I called?’ the reply, ‘I was cooking lunch’, is clear and comprehensible.

So, one way or another, there needs to be ‘a specific time’ at which the continuing action was occurring, but this period does not need to be as short as a ‘lightning flash’. It could be a period of many minutes, or an hour or more as the examples show. But there needs to be a related past tense event.

In general, I don’t have any of the criticisms of this tense that I expressed in The Present Progressive.

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