Past continuous

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Use

 

The past continuous is used to describe actions of duration that are interrupted in the past and actions at a specific time in the past.

1. Action at a specific time:
I was working at 11am yesterday.

2. Event of duration in the past (past continuous) with an interruption (past simple) He was writing an email when the phone rang.

3. Two parallel events of duration in the past:
We were speaking to a customer while John was giving a presentation.

Form

Negative Sentences

To make a negative sentence we simply add not between was/were and the verb.

I was not making a noise while you were giving the presentation.

Questions

To make a question we simply invert was/were and the subject.
Question words are placed at the start of the sentence.

What were you doing at 11am yesterday?

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