There’s no getting around it: English grammar rules can seem pretty daunting. Even if you’re a native speaker, you probably still encounter grammar-related challenges every day—like trying to understand when to use the past tense or how to conjugate certain verbs. To beat back your inner grammar geek, you’ll want to arm yourself with as much information as possible.
Reading and studying grammar articles are one way to do that, but there’s another resource that’s even better: practice exercises. The more you put in, the more you’ll reap in return—in this case, grammatical rewards like improved vocabulary skills, writing confidence, and a deeper understanding of the English language as a whole.
This blog is about the past progressive tense, we’ll give you an overview of everything you need to know about the past progressive tense so that you can write, speak or read English in confidence.
Before we explain past progressive tense, you need to have knowledge of progressive tense. After explaining a bit of progressive tense, we’ll further move on to the past progressive tense so that you can get the overall understanding of past progressive tense AKA past continuous tense.
Progressive Tense
Progressive tense is the grammatical tense in which events occur in chronological order. When the present tense is used, the action is taking place at the moment the sentence is being spoken. With progressive tense, the action occurs over a period of time.
There are a total of 3 types of progressive tense; present progressive, past progressive, and future progressive. For example,
- “I am walking” uses the present progressive tense.
- “I was walking” uses the past progressive tense.
- “I will be walking” uses the future progressive tense.
What is the Past Progressive Tense?
Now come to the past progressive tense. The past progressive tense is a grammatical tense that is used to talk about events that happened in the past and continued till some point in the past.
Some of the examples of past progressive tense are given below
- Joe was waiting for the train
- He was not teaching maths.
- She was not using a computer.
- Jacob was standing on his tiptoes.
How to Use the Past Progressive in English
Using the past progressive tense in English is so simple. You just need to do certain changes in a simple tense, and it’ll become past progressive tense.
For example, “I am rushing to school” you can change it into past progressive by adding was/were instead of am/is/are, and then use the -ing form of the verb.
The example “I am rushing to school” will be converted into “I was rushing to school”.
“Was” will be used with I/she/he/it, and “were” will be used with They/them/we.
It’s a simple example that shows how to use past progressive tense in English. Following are a few more examples that will help you to understand better about past progressive tense.
- He is writing an email to He was writing an email
- I am preparing dinner to I was preparing dinner
- I’m going to the store to I was going to the store
Difference b/w Present Progressive, Past Progressive, and Future Progressive
There is a difference between the three types of progressive tense that are described below.
- In the present tense, you talk about what is happening right now.
- In the past progressive tense, you talk about events that happened in the past.
- In the future progressive tense, you talk about what is going to happen in the future.
| Present Progressive | Past Progressive | Future Progressive |
| Joe is waiting for the train | Joe was waiting for the train | Joe will be waiting for the train |
| He is not teaching maths. | He was not teaching maths. | He will not be teaching maths. |
| She is not using a computer. | She was not using a computer. | She will not be using a computer. |
| Jacob is standing on his tiptoes. | Jacob was standing on his tiptoes. | Jacob will be standing on his tiptoes. |
Final Words
Grammar is a very important part of English, and it’s one of the most challenging topics to learn. There are many grammar mistakes that we make every day without even realizing it. Whether you’re learning English or already speaking the language, knowing how to use the correct grammar will help you express yourself better.
If you are struggling with grammar or want to brush up on your grammar skills, you may need a tutor that can guide you well. To find Professional online Teachers you can visit AmazingTalker. AmazingTalker is a wonderful online tutoring platform that has a lot of professional tutors that will help you learn a new language in no time.
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