Remember, when we want to talk about something that is happening right now, we use the present continuous tense. What about when we want to talk about something that was happening in the past? We call this the past continuous tense.

The past continuous tells us about an action that was happening in the past. It is an action that was continuing and was not yet finished, but it is not happening now in the present anymore. For example, “It was raining yesterday, but today it is snowing.”

There is good news! If you know how to form the present continuous, then you will know how to form the past continuous. All you have to do is use a past tense conjugation of “to be” before the main verb of the sentence, and add ing to the end of the main verb as usual.

  • [pronoun] + [to be-past] + [verb] -ing

Here is what the past continuous looks like with some examples:

Pronoun (person) To be (past) Verb -ing
I was do ing I was doing.
You were see ing You were seeing.
He / she / it was try ing She was trying.
We were laugh ing We were laughing.
You (pl.) were eat ing You were eating.
They were sleep ing They were sleeping.

Note: When the sentence is negative, the word “not” goes after “to be”. For example, “We were not laughing.” or “We weren’t laughing.”

Don’t forget the three rules you learned about adding ing to the end of verbs:

  1. The first rule: when a verb ends with a silent letter e, we delete the e. For example:
    • Have → hav(e) → hav + ing → having
    • Move → mov(e) → mov + ing → moving
    • Smile → smil(e) → smil + ing → smiling
  2. The second rule: when a verb ends with the letters ie, we change it to y. For example:
    • Lie → l(ie) + y → lying
  3. The third rule: when a verb ends with a consonant, and the vowel (a, e, i, o, u) before the p is a short sound, we have to double the consonant before adding ing.
    • Hit → hit + t → hitt + ing → hitting
    • Win → win + n → winn + ing → winning
    • Drop → drop + p → dropp + ing → dropping

Exercises

keyboard_arrow_up