Past Continuous

Conjugation of the past continuous

The structure of the Past Continuous (Past Continuous Tense) is:


[SUBJECT] + was / were + [verb ending -ing (gerund)]

Conjugación	Significado
	yo estaba trabajando
	tú estabas trabajando
	él estaba trabajando
	nosotros estábamos trabajando
	vosotros estabais trabajando
	ellos estaban trabajando

Negation in the past continuous

Negation is formed by simply adding the adverb "not" from the verb "to be" (was / were) and the main verb of the sentence:

structure:

[SUBJECT] + was / were not + [verb the -ing (gerund)]

          I was not singing

yo no estaba cantando

he was not singing

él no estaba cantando

The interrogation continued past

To construct the question just the verb "to be" and the subject is reversed:

Structure of the question:

was / were + [SUBJECT] + [verb the -ing (gerund)]?

Conjugación	Significado
was I singing?	¿estaba cantando?
were you singing?	¿estabas cantando?
was he singing?	¿estaba cantando?
were we singing?	¿estábamos cantando?
were you singing?	¿estabais cantando?
were they singing?	¿estaban cantando?

If the question had an interrogative particle structure would

[Interrogative particle] + was / were + [SUBJECT] + [verb the -ing (gerund)]

What were you singing?

¿Qué estabas cantando?

Using the past continuous

The "past continuous" is used to:

Actions that began in the past and want to stress that had a certain duration.

I was eating an apple, when I fell to the ground

Me estaba comiendo una manzana cuando caí al suelo

In the above example the past continuous is used to describe the action of eating the apple he had a certain length but the drop was instantaneous.

Exercise Past Continuos