Past Simple and Past Continuous - English grammar tutorial video lesson

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Past simple and past continuous grammar lesson. In this lesson I am going to show how to use and form both the past simple & the past continuous and how to keep them apart.

Take a look at these sentences:

I watched the telly last night.
I was watching the telly last night.

The first sentences contains a past simple, the second sentence is in the past continuous. In this lesson I'm going to show you how to form a past simple and how to form a past continuous and when to use past simple andwhen to use a past continuous and more important the difference between the two. First we are going to take a look at how to form these past tenses. As you might know in the English language we have regular and irregular verbs. And this this is important to remember when forming a past simple. To make a past simple for the regular verbs, we use the base form of the verb and add 'ed.''

For example:
He worked late last night

The irregular verbs have their own and unique past tense so you need to study those carefully.
I bought a new t-shirt yesterday.
The infinitive form of the verb bought is to buy. With the past continuous
we do not need to worry about regular and irregular verbs. Because all verbs that take a past continous whether they're regular or irregular, are formed by using was or were, the past tenses of the verb 'to be', and the base form of the verb and '-ing.'

For example:
He was working last night
I was buying a t-shirt, when I saw her yesterday.
Now let's have a look at how to use a past simple and how to use a past continuous and how to keep them apart. we use a past simple for actvities that were finished in the past, we usually use a time frame:

He worked late last night.

Here last night is what we consider timeframe.

I bought a new T-shirt yesterday

Here yesterday is a timeframe. A past continuous is used for activities started and finished in the past, but we want emphasized duration: so we want to show the other person the other listener or reader that the action lasted for quite some time.

For example:
He was working all night so we want emphasize that it lasted the entire night. we also use past continuous form for an ongoing action in the past interrupted by a sudden event. For example:
I was buying a t-shirt when I ran into her so I was doing something and then suddenly a
friend came up to me that's when I ran into her. Please note that for the interruption we use a past simple so we often find a past continuous and a past simple in the same sentence with the past continuous showing us that it was a continuing activity and the past simple showing the interruption of that activity.