1. The most common use of the past continuous tense is to talk about something that was happening around a particular time in the past.

过去进行时态最常用的情况就是谈论过去某个特定时间正在发生的某事。

• What were you doing at 8 o’clock last night? I was watching television.

I started watching television before 8 o’clock and I continued watching it after 8 o’clock.

我在8点前开始看电视，并且我一直看到8点后。

• In 1994 he was working in a small town in Poland.
• At 6 o’clock on Saturday morning we were travelling to the airport.

2. We often use the past continuous and the past simple tense together. When this happens, the past continuous describes a longer, ‘background’ action or situation and the past simple describes the action or events.

过去进行时态和一般过去时态一般是一起使用的。当两者同时出现的时候，过去进行时描述的是一个更长的、背景动作和背景情况，而一般过去时则描述活动或者事件。

• When I woke up this morning it was raining and my father was singing in the kitchen.
• I was walking home, whistling happily, when I saw two masked men run out of the bank.

Often, the ‘action’ described by the past simple tense interrupts the ‘situation’ described by the past continuous tense.

一般来讲，由一般过去时态来描述的“动作”会打断由过去进行时态描述的“情况”。

• I broke my leg when I was skiing.
• I was playing a computer game when the doorbell rang.

Notice that the past continuous describes ‘situations’ that go on for some time – ‘skiing’ and ‘playing’ but the past simple describes ‘actions’ that happen quickly – ‘broke’ and ‘rang’.

请注意，过去进行时态描述的是能持续进行一段时间的“情况”，这里的skiing和playing是一般过去时描述的很快发生的“动作”。

Notice too the important difference between these two sentences.

还请注意一下两个句子的重要区别。

• When they arrived, Jeff was cooking dinner. Jeff started cooking before they arrived.
• When they arrived, Jeff cooked dinner. Jeff started cooking dinner after they arrived.