Learning Tenses - Step four - Past Continuous

Past continuous (progressive) generally refers to :

• Actions in progress (often interrupted by events )

While I was openning the letter , the phone rang .

• Background description in narrative .
• Changing states

The car was getting worse all the time .One of the headlights was gradually falling off , and the engine was making more and more funny noises .

• Repeated actins - criticism

When Jane was at school ,she was always losing things .

• To describe events intended to take place , but which dd not happen :

I was going to phone you , but I forgot .

• However , we can use the past continuous , particulary in spoken English , when we want to emphasise that repeated actions went on for a limited and temporary period of past time :

When Kate was in hospital , we were visiting her twice a day .