Unit 8 grammar: The Past Continuous Tense

Прошедшее длительное время (the Past Continuous Tense) употребляется:

1. Для выражения действия, протекавшего (длившегося) в определенный момент в прошлом, который обозначен либо обстоятельством, либо другим действием в прошлом, при этом ни начало, ни конец длительного действия неизвестны:

I was writing a letter at 5 o’clock. В пять часов я писал письмо.

I was writing a letter when you came. Я писал письмо, когда ты пришел.

2. Для выражения одновременных действий, протекавших в прошлом в один и тот же момент: While he was having his breakfast, I was reading the newspaper. Пока он завтракал, я читал газету.

3. Для выражения действий, являющихся характеристикой определенного человека в прошлом. Речь говорящего в этом случае приобретает эмоциональный оттенок (раздражение, похвала, осуждение и т.п.). В таких предложениях, как правило, есть наречия always, constantly. Например: She was constantly playing computer games. Она постоянно играла в компьютерные игры.

В отличие от употребления the Past Indefinite Tense, где важен только факт совершения действия, the Past Continuous Tense употребляется, чтобы подчеркнуть сам процесс действия, его продолженность.

The Past Continuous Tense не употребляется с глаголами чувственного восприятия: to hear, to see и т.д.

Образование the Past Continuous Tense

Past Continuous образуется из сочетания вспомогательного глагола to be в Past Indefinite и Participle I смыслового глагола: was / were + Ving.

positive	negative	interrogative
I (/he/she/it.) was working. We (you/they) were working.	I (/he/she/it.) was not working. We (you/they) were not working.	Was I (/he/she/it.) working? Were we (you/they) working?

Примеры образования специальных, разделительных вопросов и кратких ответов:

Was he working? Yes, he was. No, he was not (wasn’t).

Were they working? Yes, they were. No, they were not (weren’t).

He was working at the library at 5 o’clock, wasn’t he?

Who was working at the library at 5 o’clock?

What were you doing at 5 o’clock?

Grammar exercises

1. Open the brackets, put the verbs into the correct form, the Past Continuous Tense. Translate the sentences:

1. The student (to reply) to the question when the dean came in. 2. He (to work) at his diploma yesterday morning 3. When I met my classmate, he (to buy) a new computer. 4. It (to rain) when I arrived at my destination. 5. I haven’t seen him for ages. When I saw him he (to try) to find a job. 6. What you (to do) when the earthquake started? – I (to listen) to my iPod, so I didn't hear the fire alarm. 7. While I (to reconstruct) the system, my colleague (to write) a new code. 8. It was ten o'clock in the morning when I entered the office. Some visitors (to wait) for the manager. The secretary (to speak) to somebody on the telephone, and the bookkeeper (to dictate) a letter. 9. In June that firm (to carry) negotiations for the purchase of software. 10. Не (to make) a website during the summer. 11. While I (to write) the e-mail, the computer suddenly went off. 12. While delivering the lecture he (to demonstrate) the map. 12. At some point IBM (to fail) to compete with the new breed of innovative software companies and hardware producers who could make computers much more cheaply.

2. Translate into Russian, find all the verbs in the form of the Past Continuous Tense. Ask general, alternative, special and disjunctive questions to the sentence in bold:

1. Aristotle (384-322 BC) lived at the time when Philip of Macedonia was conquering areas of Greece such as Attica.

2. In the century before Darwin (1809-1882) was born, scientific observation and the powerful rationality of the Age of Enlightenment were slowly changing the way people looked at the natural world.

Some thinkers were beginning to question the idea that all species have been there from the start unchanging. More and more naturalists were looking at fossils and finding they were of species that often seemed very different from those alive today.

At the same time, geologists such as James Hutton were beginning to challenge the orthodox idea that the world was just a few thousand years old, and that all the landscapes were created in a series of brief catastrophes. A growing minority were arguing that the Earth is in fact very old, and that the landscapes were created by long slow cycles of erosion and upheaval (смещение пластов).

3. Read and translate. Replace the infinitives given in brackets by the Past Simple Tense or the Past Continuous Tense: