Past Continuous(past continuous tense) is a grammatical tense that is used to express actions that were ongoing at a specific point in the past or to describe actions that occurred simultaneously with other events in the past. It indicates an action that was in progress in the past and usually has a specific point in time when it occurred.

Examples:

• I was watching TV when you called. (I was watching TV when you called.)
• They were playing football at 6 PM. (They were playing football at 6 p.m.)

Creating sentences in Past Continuous

A. Affirmative Sentences

In Past Continuousyou create affirmative sentences with the past tense form of the verbto be (i.e. was/ were) and the verb ending in-ing.

Example:

• She was studying all night. (She was studying all night.)

B. Negative Sentences

In Past Continuouswe form negative sentences usingwas/were not ( wasn't/ weren't) and a verb ending in-ing.

Subject	was/were not (wasn't/weren't)	verb + -ing	Example
I / he / she	wasn't	working	He wasn't workingyesterday. (He didn't work yesterday.)
you / we / they	weren't	playing	They weren't playingfootball. (They weren't playing football.)

Example:

• I wasn't readingwhen you came in (I wasn't reading when you came in.)

C. Questions

In Past Continuouswe form questions by replacingwas/wereat the beginning of the sentence, and after it we use the subject and the verb with the ending-ing.

Was/Were	entity	verb + -ing	Example
Was	he / she	going	Was she going to the store? (Was she going to the store?)
Were	you / we / they	watching	Were you watching TV? (Have you watched TV?)

Example:

• Were you sleeping when I called? (Were you asleep when I called?)

Exceptions in Past Continuous

In Past Continuous there are no specific exceptions in sentence formation, but it is worth remembering that the verb to be (was/were) is an irregular verb and its form changes depending on the subject (I/he/she - was, you/we/they – were). Moreover, as in any continuous tense, static verbs that describe a state, such as know, like, believe, understand, want, usually do not appear in this tense. Instead we use Past Simple.

Example (static verbs):

• I knewhim very well. (I knew him very well.) (nowas knowing)