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Past Continuous Tense Simple Past Tense

At 4 pm last Saturday, I was At 4 pm last Saturday, I swam
swimming in the Pulau in Pulau Tioman before I went
Tioman. back home.

The past continuous The past simple emphasises
emphasises the action or the event that happened at a

event in progress around a definite time in the past.
time in the past. The event
(working) was in progress at 4 The focus is not on events in
pm. progress but rather on the

whole events (finished work,
The event was not completed went home).
at that time.

The events were completed at
that time.

Both past continuous tense and simple past tense can be used

together. Use simple past to emphasise the main event. When
one event is more important than the other in the past, we can

use the past simple to emphasise the main event. We can use

the past continuous for the background event (the less
important one):

[ background event] [main event]
Ariana was scuba diving when she got bitten by aquatic

insects.

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