Difficulty
| Low | (Medium) | High | |||
| A1 | A2 | (B1) | B2 | C1 | C2 |
Differences between these two tenses:
|
Past Simple |
Past Continuous |
| 1) Used to talk about a finished action in the past, often with time expressions like yesterday, last week, a year ago etc. | 1) Used to express an action in progress at a particular time in the past |
| 2) used when one action happens after another | 2) to give background information |
| 3) for an interrupted action in the past | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) We went to Mexico two years ago. | 1) I was having dinner at 7 o’clock last night |
| 2) When Tom arrived we went to the cinema. | 2) When I got to the school, the teachers were talking, the children were playing and the phone was ringing. |
| 3) I was cooking when the phone rang. |
Remember – we don’t usually use state verbs in continuous tenses. E.g. need, want, love, like, know, understand, hate, remember etc.
created by Tess Giordmaina
[ssquiz id=’11’ all]