Skip to content

English Grammar Secrets

English Grammar Lessons, Quizzes and Exercises with examples

Menu
  • Home
  • Business English Grammar Exercises and Quizzes
  • Business English Phrases
Menu
Past simple or continuous

Business English Grammar 5- Master Past Simple or Continuous

Posted on October 6, 2019September 7, 2020 by admin
2.9
(125)

Table of Contents

  • Form
  • Past Simple or Progressive
  • Talking about the past
  • Emphasise the continuity
  • Contrast
  • Exercise

Form

I was sittingI sat
You were sittingYou sat
She was sittingShe sat
We were sittingWe sat
They were sittingThey sat
I wasn’t sittingI didn’t sit
You weren’t sittingYou didn’t sit
He wasn’t sittingHe didn’t sit
We weren’t sittingWe didn’t sit
They weren’t sittingThey didn’t sit
Was I sitting?Did I sit?
Were you sitting?Did you sit?
Was she sitting?Did you sit?
Were we sitting?Did we sit?
Were they sitting?Did they sit?

Past Simple or Progressive

Both the past simple and the past continuous refer to completed actions in the past.

Talking about the past

Most of the time when we are talking about such actions, we use the past simple. This is by far the most common way of talking about the past.

  • I lived there for 6 years.
  • I only found out a few moments ago.
  • I asked her but she didn’t know anything.
  • The company made 100 people redundant last year.

Emphasise the continuity

Only use the past continuous when you want to emphasize the continuity of the action. 

  • Everybody was talking about it all evening.
  • They were really trying hard but couldn’t do it.
  • I was thinking about you the other day.
  • Were you expecting that to happen?

Contrast

When we use these two forms in the same sentence, we use the past continuous to talk about the “background action” and the past simple to talk about the shorter completed action. 

  • It was raining hard when we left the building.
  • I was reading the report when you rang.
  • He was going out to lunch when I saw him.

Exercise

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 2.9 / 5. Vote count: 125

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

As you found this post useful...

Follow us on social media!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Sign up

Grammar

  • Regular actions -the Present Simple
  • Business English Grammar 2- perfect the Present Continuous
  • Business English Grammar 3- perfect Present Simple or Present Continuous
  • Business English Grammar 4 – perfect the Past Simple
  • Business English Grammar 5- Perfect the Past Continuous
  • Business English Grammar 5- Master Past Simple or Continuous
  • Business English Grammar Irregular verbs
  • Present Perfect English Grammar
  • Business English Grammar Present Perfect Simple vs Present Perfect Continuous
  • Business English Grammar Present Perfect Continuous
  • Business English Grammar Past Simple or Present Perfect
  • Business English Grammar Past Perfect
  • Business English Grammar Past Perfect Continuous
  • Business English Grammar Past Review 1
  • Business English Grammar Past Review 2
  • Business English Grammar Going to
  • Business English Grammar Will Future
  • Business English Grammar Will be doing
  • Business English Grammar Will or Going to
  • Business English Grammar The Future – present forms
  • Business English Grammar Will – other uses
  • Business English Grammar Shall
  • Business English Grammar The Passive
  • Business English Grammar The Imperative
  • Business English Grammar The -ing form
  • Business English Grammar Can
  • Could grammar
  • Business English Grammar May/Might
  • Business English Grammar Should 1
  • Business English Grammar Should 2
  • Business English Grammar Must/Have to
  • Business English Grammar Zero Conditional
  • Business English Grammar First Conditional
  • Business English Grammar Second Conditional
  • Business English Grammar Third Conditional
  • Wish grammar – I wish
  • Had better grammar /had better not
  • Business English Grammar Used to
  • Business English Grammar Ask Questions 1
  • Business English Grammar Ask Questions 2
  • Question tags -master isn’t it grammar
  • Business English Grammar Reported Speech 1
  • Business English Grammar Reported Speech 2
  • Business English Grammar Suppose 1
  • Business English Grammar Suppose 2
  • Business English Grammar Have something done
  • Business English Grammar Should Have
  • Business English Grammar Can/Could have
  • Business English Grammar Will have done
  • Business English Phrases 32- perfect more MAKE expressions

Newsletter

Other great sites

  • Business English Vocabulary
  • Business English Listening
  • Understanding and using English grammar
  • Business English Writing

Looking for something?

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Earn money online

Free training. Click hete
©2021 English Grammar Secrets | Built using WordPress and Responsive Blogily theme by Superb

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy