is about the past simple and the past continuous.

Take a look at these sentences:

I watched the telly last night.

I was watching the telly last night.

The first sentences contains a past simple,

the second sentence is in the past continuous.

In this lesson I'm going to show you how to form a past simple

and how to form a past continuous and

when to use past simple and

when to use a past continuous and more important

the difference between the two. First we are going to take a look at how to form

these past tenses. As you might know

in the English language we have regular

and irregular verbs. And this this is important to remember

when forming a past simple. To make a past simple

for the regular verbs, we use the

base form of the verb and add 'ed.''

For example: He worked late last night

The irregular verbs

have their own and unique past tense so you need to study those carefully.

I bought a new t-shirt yesterday.

The infinitive form of the verb bought is to buy.

With the past continuous

we do not need to worry about regular and

irregular verbs. Because all verbs that take a past continous

whether they're regular or irregular,

are formed by using

was or were, the past tenses of the verb 'to be',

and the base form of the verb and '-ing.'

For example: He was working last night

I was buying a t-shirt, when I saw her yesterday.

Now let's have a look at how to use a past simple

and how to use a past continuous and how to keep them apart.

we use a past simple for activities

that were finished in the past, we usually use

a time frame: He worked late last night.

Here last night is waht we consider

timeframe. I bought a new T-shirt yesterday

Here yesterday

is a timeframe. A past continuous

is used for activities started and finished in the past,

but we want emphasized duration:

so we want to show the other person the other listener

or reader that the action lasted for quite some time.

For example: He was working all

night so we want emphasize that it lated

the entire night. we also use past continuous form for an

ongoing action in the past interrupted by a sudden event.

For example I was buying a t-shirt

when I ran into her so I was

doing something and then suddenly a friend came up to me

that's when I ran into her. Please note

that for the interruption we use a simple

so we often find a past continuous

and a past simple in the same sentence with the

past continuous showing us that it was a continuing

activity and the past simple showing

the interruption of that activity. Thank you

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