Review of the Past Tense (Past Progressive and Past Simple)

There are different ways to talk about the past in English.

Past Simple

We use the past simple (L1U6L1-5) to talk about things that started and finished in the past. It is the form we use the most to talk about the past.

For example: I talked to my friend yesterday.

There are two kinds of verbs in the past simple: regular and irregular. In both regular and irregular forms, the verb is the same for all pronouns.

For regular verbs, we add –ed to the base form of the verb. For spelling rules, see the Know More in L1U6L1.

For example: We watched TV and listened to music last night.

Irregular verbs (L1U6L2) do not take –ed. The more you use them, the easier it is to remember them.

Some common irregular verbs are:

For a list of all the irregular past verbs we use in BrainPOP ESL, look at the Word Lists in any lesson, and go to the Appendix.

We also use the past simple to tell a story in the past.

For example: The children were scared when they saw the monster. They screamed and ran into the forest.

Some time expressions that go with the past simple are: yesterday, last night, last week, last month, last summer, two days ago, three weeks ago, a year ago.

The Verb Be

For the verb be, we use am/is/are in the present simple. In the past simple, it becomes was/were.

Past Progressive

We use the past progressive (L2U4L1, L2U4L2) to talk about an ongoing or continuous action in the past. This ongoing action can be:

1. at a certain time in the past.
   For example: We were watching a movie at 8:00 last night.
   
   
2. at the moment when another action interrupted it. We use the past progressive for the continuous action and the past simple for the action that interrupted it.
   For example: The telephone rang while I was sleeping.
   
   
3. while another ongoing action was taking place.
   For example: Ed and Moby were playing computer games while I was studying.

We make the past progressive with the past form of the verb be and add -ing to the base form of the verb (was/were + verb + -ing).

Some time expressions that go with the past progressive are when, while, and as. When the time clause (the part of the sentence with the time expression) comes at the beginning of the sentence, we use a comma to separate it from the main clause. If the time expression comes in the middle of the sentence, there is no comma.

The past progressive is only used when the action was in the middle of happening. We don't use the past progressive when one thing happened after another, and it is not used with stative verbs.

For example: I was running home last night because it was raining. I wasn’t looking, so I didn’t see the banana peel. I stepped on it and fell in a lot of water.