The past progressive or continuous

The past progressive or sometimes called past continuous is used for ongoing actions – but actions that happened in the past. Tomorrow you can say the sentence: “Yesterday I was reading some sentences in English, when I suddenly understood the problem.” Keywords for the past progressive can be yesterday, last year a.s.o.

 I was running through the park when a twig fell down right in front of me.

Ich lief (gerade) durch den Park, als ein Zweig vor mir herunterfiel.

Forms:

For the past progressive you use a form of the auxiliary “to be” in the past

and the –ing form of the verb. 

I  was seeing                                    ich sah (gerade) , „ich war beim Sehen“

you  were  seeing                 du sahst

he, she, it was seeing            er, sie es sah

we were     seeing                 wir sahen

you  were   seeing                ihr saht

they were   seeing                sie sahen

For questions and negations you don´t need a “did not” like in simple past, you always use the negation of a form of “to be” in the past tense.

Q  -  Questions

Were you going there, too ?

Was she working at that moment?

Why are we learning English at the moment ?

Hey Jake, what are you doing ?

Look at him over there, what is he working at ?

N  -  Negations

I was not doing that!

He was never living in this street, when I lived here.