Updated on January 5, 2024
What is the past progressive tense?
English has many ways to discuss events or actions that happened in the past. If you are studying English, you are probably familiar with a few. Learning different past tenses helps you communicate in a clear way. It can also help you sound more natural in English.
We’ll discuss how to use the past progressive tense, when to use it, and give you some examples you can practice with.
The past progressive is also known as the past continuous. Don’t be confused by the different names when you practice English grammar exercises. They are the same tense!
The simple past (for regular verbs, this is verb + -ed) describes an action in the past that is completed.
The simple past is important when using the past progressive tense. More information on this is below.
We use the past progressive tense to describe actions that were in progress at a specific time in the past. We describe an action that started in the past and was then interrupted by another action.
These sentences use the past continuous followed by the past simple interruption. The past continuous verb here conveys the past progressive tense (remember, these terms mean the same thing).
We also use the past progressive to describe two actions that were in progress at the same time in the past.
In these examples, both actions are happening at the same time in the past. Both use the past progressive tense. We use the words while or when to connect the two actions.
The past progressive tense uses this formula:
Subject + was / were + present participle (verb + ing)
Past progressive sentences must include was or were, both past tense forms of the verb to be. Let’s review the verb to be to see that there are only those two options:
| Subject | To Be |
| I | was |
| You (singular) | were |
| He / She / It | was |
| You (plural) | were |
| We | were |
| They | were |
The past progressive tense must also include the present participle. If you didn’t remember that the present participle is made by adding -ing to a verb, feel free to take an English grammar review break.
Above, we learned how to form positive sentences. We should also learn to form negative sentences in the past progressive. In order to make the phrase negative, we need to add the word not to our sentence. Here is the formula.
Subject + was / were + not + present participle (-ing verb)
We can also use a contraction in negative sentences.
Let’s take a look at some more past progressive tense examples. Use these sentences to practice more on your own. Try to substitute different verbs to describe actions you observed yesterday, last week or last year.
The past progressive tense is especially useful for asking questions about the past. We can ask two main types of questions. We have simple Yes/No questions and open-ended questions, which use a question word. Note: For questions, you will notice the subject and the verb are separated.
Was / Were + Subject + present participle (-ing)
Question words are who, what, when, where, why and how.
The past progressive tense is a widely used English verb tense. Learning it will help you communicate in more complex ways. And it can help you sound more natural and fluent. Whether you learn British English or American English, understanding different ways to talk about the past will take practice. In the end, your time and effort will be worth it.
