WHEN AND WHILE Simple Past irregular verbs v
WHEN AND WHILE
Simple Past irregular verbs: v I spoke regular verbs: verb + ed v I worked Past Progressive past form of 'be' + ing form of verb v I was speaking v you were speaking v he / she / it was speaking v we were speaking v they were speaking
• We use the past continuous tense to express a long action. And we use the simple past tense to express a short action. • If you want to express that a new action (short action) happened in the middle of an action in progress (long action), you need both tenses: Simple Past for the new action and Past Progressive for the action already in progress. . We can join the two ideas with when or while.
In the following example, we have two actions: 1. long action (watching TV), expressed with past continuous tense I was watching TV at 8 pm. 2. short action (telephoned), expressed with simple past tense You telephoned at 8 pm. We can join these two actions with when or while : I was watching TV when you telephoned while I was watching TV
We use: • When is used for shorter actions, and while is used for longer actions. When is usually used with simple tenses, and while with progressive tenses. when + short action (simple past tense) while + long action (past continuous tense) For example, let’s look at two actions, one short and one long: Short action – Fall down (it only takes a second to fall down) Long action – Ride a bike (bike rides can last a long time)
Because one is long and one is short, these two actions can’t happen at the same time. The short action interrupts the long action: I was riding my bike when I fell down while I was riding my bike.
Let’s consider two more actions: Reading a book Telephone ringing It is clear that the telephone ringing is the shorter action, it only takes a few seconds: I was reading a book when the telephone rang. The telephone rang while I was reading a book
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