Past tenses in English
We use this tense in English to talk about events or situations that are finished. Normally we use a time reference.
For example:
"Last year I went to Spain."
"In 1997, he changed his job."
"She called an hour ago."
We also use the Past Simple tense in English to talk about long-lasting events or situations in the past.
"When I was a child, I lived in the countryside."
To talk about repeated activites in the past, we also use the Past Simple.
"I often went to the beach as a child."
Past Continuous Tense ("I was doing")
There are three main uses of this tense:
1. To talk about what was happening at a particular time in the past and to give descriptions and background information.
2. To talk about temporary situations in the past.
3. To make polite requests.
1. Talking about what was happening at a particular time in the past.
"This time yesterday, I was reading a book."
We often use the Past Continuous tense with the Past Simple tense. The Past Continuous gives the background to an event in the Past Simple:
"When he got home, the children were playing in the garden." (The children started playing in the garden before he got home.)
"I was eating dinner when there was a knock on the door." (The knock on the door came in the middle of my meal.)
We can use the Past Continuous to give descriptions.
"The girl was wearing a yellow dress. She was eating ice-cream and was watching television."
2. Talking about temporary situations in the past.
"When I was living in London, I often went to the theatre." (Living in London was temporary – perhaps I only lived there for a short while.)
Compare with: "When I was a child I lived in the countryside." Living in the countryside was a longer event – I was a child for more than a couple of years. For more permanent situations, we use the Past Simple tense.
3. Making polite requests.
If we want to make polite requests, we can use the Past Continuous tense. This is because we put a distance between ourselves and the person we are asking.
"I was wondering if you had time to see me."
"I was hoping we could discuss a pay raise."
I really appreciate your affort to teach us good english, but i have a doubt about this sentence"I was wondering if you had a time to see me" so why we have to use HAD instead of HAVE.The meaning of this sentence is like you are hoping to see you by someone means you have not seen yet so why do we have to use HAD? please clear my concept.I think it would also be correct to use "have", but as "was wondering" is in the past continuous, using "had" helps to maintain the sense of distance that we use when we want to be very polite.
Thnax for teaching as a good way but i didn't understand the 3rd point of using the past continuous tense to make a polite request.We just use this tense in polite, formal situations. We could also say "Could I..." or "Would you..." but the past continuous creates a distance between us and the other person, so is considered very polite.
I just saw the following two sentences: I’m not sure either. I just wanted to point out that we need to be careful in sthHere, the past tense is used to be polite instead of past continuous tense. Is there any reason?
Qi » Yes - it's more normal to use "want" in the simple rather than continuous form. Want is a state verb, and not generally used in continuous tenses.
help me clare! is this sentence correct " i had hoped that you would call me yesterday" or we use word "wish" instead of "had hope". help me!
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