Past Continuous: how to form it and when to use it

What were you doing at eight o’clock last night? If the answer is “I was cooking dinner”, you need the Past Continuous, the tense for an action that was in progress at a moment in the past.

How to form the Past Continuous

The structure is was / were + verb-ing: subject + was/were + V-ing. Use was with I, he, she and it; use were with you, we and they.

• I was cooking dinner at eight o’clock.An action in progress at a specific time in the past.
• He was sleeping when I got home.A long action interrupted by a short one (Past Simple).
• They were playing football all afternoon.An activity that lasted for a period of time.

The -ing form is spelled the same as in the Present Continuous: cook → cooking, run → running (double the n), make → making (drop the e). Only the auxiliary changes: am/is/are becomes was/were. If you need a refresher, see our Present Continuous rules post.

Negatives and questions

Make a negative with wasn’t or weren’t before the -ing form. For a yes/no question, put was or were before the subject. With a question word, it comes first. Past Simple negatives and questions follow a similar pattern; see our Past Simple post.

• They weren’t watching TV, they were working.Negative: an activity that was not going on, as the real focus was something else.
• Was she sleeping at midnight?Yes/no question: was/were goes before the subject.
• What were you doing when I called?Wh-question: question word + was/were + subject + V-ing.
• Where was he going at that time?Wh-question with a verb of motion.

Past Continuous and Past Simple: when and while

The two tenses often appear in the same sentence. The Past Continuous gives the background, the longer action; the Past Simple gives the short event that interrupted it. Use while before the long action and when before the short one. For all the past tenses together, see our past tenses post.

• I was reading when the phone rang.A long action (reading) interrupted by a short one (the phone rang).
• While I was cooking, my son was doing his homework.Two long actions happening at the same time.
• When the lights went out, we were watching a film.A short event first, then the background action.

Common mistakes

• I was go → I was going: don’t forget the -ing ending.
• They was playing → They were playing: with you, we and they, always use were.
• I was knowing the answer → I knew the answer: state verbs such as know, like, want, believe and understand are usually not used in continuous tenses.
• Using Past Simple for both actions makes them sound like a sequence: I read a book. Then the phone rang. If the reading was still going on when the phone rang, use I was reading.

Check yourself

New mini-lessons come out on our YouTube channel. For more practice, try our grammar quizzes, and if you want to use these tenses in real conversation, book a free trial lesson.