Use the Past Continuous for an action in progress at a moment in the past, often interrupted by a shorter one: I was cooking when she called. Form: was / were + -ing.
I was cooking when she called.
A bar in the past, with a dot cutting into it: the longer action was already in progress when the short one happened.
| Positive | I was working. · They were working. |
|---|---|
| Negative | I wasn't working. · They weren't working. |
| Question | Were you working? · Was she working? |
I was driving when it started to rain.
The longer action takes the Past Continuous; the short one that interrupts it takes the Past Simple.
At 8 pm I was having dinner.
The action had started before 8 pm and continued after it.
The sun was shining and the birds were singing.
It sets the scene. The main events then follow in the Past Simple.
Words that often go with this tense. They're hints, not rules.
I _____ a shower when the phone rang.
Other past tenses: Past Simple, Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous.
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Use while before the longer action in progress (while I was driving) and when before the short one (when the phone rang).
Not normally. For past habits use the Past Simple or used to: I walked to school, I used to walk to school.
State verbs, which describe states rather than actions: know, believe, understand, like, love, hate, want, need, prefer, own, belong, seem, mean. They normally stay simple even when you mean 'right now': I know, not I'm knowing.