Past Tense and Pas Continous Tense

Past Tense

Simple past tense is used to indicate the activity in the past. Furthermore, simple past is used for retelling successive events. So, it is commonly used in a story telling.

Nominal

(+) S + was/were + O/C
(-) S + was/were + not + O/C

(?) Was/were + S + O/C

Example:

(+) She was teacher
(-) She was not teacher
(?) Was she teacher?

- Yes, she was

- No, she was not.

Verbal

(+) S + V2 + O/C
(-) S didn’t + V1 + O/C
(?) Did + S + V1 + O/C

Example:

(+) I went to market last week.
(-) I didn’t go to market last week
(?) Did you go to market lask week?

Time Signal of Simple Past Tense :

Yesterday

Yesterday afternoon

Last night

Last month

Last week

Last year

An hour ago

In 1994

The continuous

Formula:

 Past Continuous Tense

A.   To talk about an action which was in progress at certain time in the past.

B.    To talk about two actions that occurred at the same time. On action began earlier and was in progress when the other action occurred.

C.    To talk  about two long actions that were in progress simultaneously.

(+)  S + was/were + V_ing + O/C

(-)  S + was/were + not + V_ing + O/C

(?)  was/were +S + V_ing + O/C + ?

Example

(+)  Shasa was reading a magazine

(-)   Shasa wasn’t reading a magazine

(?)   Was she reading a magazine?