Simple and Continuous: Usage

Now that we know how to form the simple past tense and past continuous tense in the affirmative, negative, and interrogative, let's look at how they are different from each other when using them in sentences.

Past Tense Usage: Simple and Continuous Aspects

As we mentioned at the beginning of Unit 1, verbs are very important to the meaning of a sentence. Therefore, understanding when to use the past simple and when to use the past continuous is important. Choosing the correct tense will help you share your ideas clearly in English. For this lesson, it is helpful to remember information you learned in ESL001 about word order, adverbs, and complex sentences.

 

Using the Simple Past Tense

  1. Meaning

In English, speakers and writers use the simple past tense to describe actions completed in the past as well as past habits, routines, and general facts or truths.

Action

Sentence Examples

completed in the past

(Something completed at a specified time or finished period of  time).

Dennis watched two movies last night.

You were in class at 8:00 am.

He sent several emails to his friends three days ago.

past habit or state

(Something you did regularly or was true).

My brothers often cooked pasta when they were teenagers.

We were happy before we moved to another city.

 

The video below reviews the use of simple past tense.


 

  1. Signal Words

You remember from the present tense lesson that signal words help us to understand or show the time of the action used in a sentence. There are specific signal words, or time markers, we use with the past simple tense. 

Adverbs of frequency can be used to show how often a past habit or routine happened. You should follow the same word order rules we reviewed in the present tense lesson. 

Other time words and phrases can be used with the simple past to indicate the specific time in the past when the action was completed. These time expressions can come at the beginning of a sentence or the end of a sentence.

  • last + night/week/month/term/year

  • yesterday

  • a/number + time period + ago; example: an hour ago; three weeks ago

  • in + month/year; example: in June; in 2019

  • on + specific date; example: on March 19; on May 5, 2021

 

Source: Adapted from Annapurna Madhuri, https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/effectiveenglish/chapter/simple-past/; videos from Johnson Online Academy
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