Do you know how to use the past continuous and past simple? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you. Look at these examples to see how the past continuous and past simple are used.

In general, the past simple describes a completed action while the past continuous describes an interrupted action in some way - that is, one which happens around another action or time. Wear is an unusual verb in that it is usually in the continuous unless you are talking about a particular event or situation.

Learn about the different past tense forms (past simple, past continuous and past perfect) and do the exercises to practise using them.

Learn how to use the past simple to talk about the past, and do the exercises to practise using it.

In contrast, if the writer had used past simple ("Kate put clothes away"), it would present the action as a main story event (these are normally told using the past simple, in a past narrative). So, writers use the past continuous to relate the action to others in the story.

We use both the present perfect simple (have or has + past participle) and the present perfect continuous (have or has + been + -ing form) to talk about past actions or states which are still connected to the present.

Do you know how to talk about past habits using used to, would and the past simple? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Past simple and past continuous When we backshift, past simple usually changes to past perfect simple, and past continuous usually changes to past perfect continuous. 'We lived in China for five years.'

According to the grammar, Past perfect is used to talk about an action that hapens BEFORE another action in Past Simple. Therefore, the first action is the action in Past Perfect and the second action is in past simple. But in this sentence the first action is "start" and the second one is "watch", so why is "watch" in past perfect?

Do you know all the different uses of present simple and continuous? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.