The past continuous is made from the past tense of the verb 'be' and the present participle form of a verb:

Look at some examples:

To negative sentences, 'not' is used after the auxiliary verb 'to be.'

The negative forms of 'be' (was, were) can be contracted in the negative form.

To make a yes/no question in the past continuous tense, the auxiliary 'was/were' comes before the subject and then the main verb is added. Look at the examples below.

To form 'wh- questions,' the interrogative word comes at the beginning, followed by the auxiliary and then the subject and the main verb. Here are some examples:

The past continuous tense is used to talk about:

We use the past continuous tense to talk about an action that was ongoing in the past, which means it continued for some time in the past. Typically, verbs that denote activities with a clear endpoint are used in the past continuous tense in this sense, such as 'work,' 'play,' 'eat,' etc. Check out the examples:

We use the past continuous tense to talk about an action that was interrupted by another event or action. Remember, in this case, the action described by the past continuous tense had already started before the interruption occurred. For example:

We use the past continuous tense to talk about two actions that were happening at the same time in the past. It means that both actions were taking place at the moment, and they were both in progress. Here are the examples:

We use the past continuous tense to talk about a process of changing, growing, or developing. This indicates a gradual progression or advancement over an extended period of time. Check out these examples:

Stative verbs are not commonly used in progressive tenses, but some of them can be used progressively to talk about a temporary state; for example, 'live,' 'feel,' 'be,' etc. But keep in mind that not all stative verbs can be used in this way. Look at the examples:

We use the past continuous tense to talk about an action that was performed repeatedly in the past. In this case, you can also use some adverbs of frequency, such as 'always', 'every day' and 'constantly' to emphasize the repetition of actions. For example:

We use the past continuous tense at the beginning of a story to describe the background or ongoing actions in a story written in the past tense. Remember it is common to use the simple past tense to narrate a story, but to express the background we use the past continuous tense. Here are some examples:

We use the past continuous tense with the main verbs 'wonder,' 'think,' or 'hope' to make a polite request. For example:

We can use the past continuous tense in second conditionals to refer to the present or future in hypothetical situations. This means that we are not talking about something that is probable to happen. It is actually something that would happen if a hypothetical situation were true. For example:

We can also use the past continuous tense in the subjunctive mood after verbs like 'wish' to express a desire for something that is unlikely to happen. For example: