This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2360. Your grammar questions answered, past simple or past progressive.

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz.

and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

Have you ever wondered why native speakers use simple past versus past progressive? Sometimes it seems to have no rhyme or reason. Today we break it down and give you a simple secret to tell the difference.

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Hello, Lindsay. How are you? Hey, Aubrey. I'm doing fantastic. How's everything in your world today? Amazing. I'm curious. I know you've been getting a ton of snow in Colorado. When was the last time you went sledding? It's been a really long time, Aubrey. I don't even remember the last time I went sledding, unfortunately. You opted for skiing instead, probably, right? Yeah. When I went skiing last winter with my brother and my niece, they went sledding at Copper Mountain, but I was doing, I don't know, I was still skiing or something or

doing something else. So I missed it. I missed the opportunity. I have a question here. I'm intentionally asking you about sledding because this came up in our Q&A where a student said, I sledded last weekend. I'm like, oh, we would say I went sledding. We would use the past progressive there. Would it sound strange to you if I asked when's the last time you sledded?

Yeah, it does. Unfortunately, it sounds a little strange. We just don't say it that way sometimes. Yeah. And so I started diving into this because we have gotten quite a few listener questions about

you know, past simple or present simple versus progressive. How do I know when to use which? Because this is very tricky in English. Sometimes it seems like there's no rhyme or reason. One person will use one and somebody else switches it up and we don't understand why. So I'm excited to get into this today.

Yeah, me too. I'm super excited. This is a great skill for the upper intermediate, you know, B2 level to move into C1 to really understand this. Guys, go ahead and hit the follow button right here on All Ears English to make sure you catch five episodes a week of All Ears English. All right.

Absolutely. Yes. And grammar, vocabulary, we get into it all. Oh, yeah. There's no question we won't answer if it's a good question. Right. So send us your questions to support at allersenglish.com and our team will make sure your question gets routed in the right direction.

So let's do a quick overview of the grammar we're talking about today. First, past simple tense. When do we use past simple tense, Lindsay? All right. So we use the past simple when we are describing a completed action that happened at a very specific point in the past. So we know when it happened. Exactly, right? This is created with a subject and then a verb conjugated in past simple tense. So for example, I thought I saw your dog in the park.

I thought. Yes, past simple. Right, exactly. But then we talk about past progressive tense, which is used for actions that happen over a period of time in the past.

So exactly. And this is constructed with the past tense of be so was or were and the present participle of a main verb, which is verb ing. So, for example, I was thinking about you yesterday. So same verbs. I thought I saw your dog that happened at a specific point in time. I was thinking about you. This happened over a period of time.

Over a period of time, right? It's not a specific point. It's over a period of time. Yesterday could have been any time yesterday, right, Aubrey? Right, exactly. So in general, this is going to help you know which to use. But when it comes to activities that we do that take a certain amount of time, this is where I think this gets the trickiest and people will get tripped up.

because we'll use both verbs in the past and they're a little more interchangeable. Like, for example, why do we say I went running, but I ran a marathon? A marathon takes a long time. Why am I not using past progressive?

Oh, it's a good question, Aubrey. Tricky, tricky. Well, we know exactly when we ran that marathon, right? And if we haven't said, we're not saying I ran a marathon last year on November 27th. I'm not repeating it, right? It's an action completed in the past, but so is I went running, right? They're both and they both take time. So I could imagine you taking those two with the rules you're given. How do we know which to use? So our protein today. Yeah.

is we use past progressive for doing an activity in general, like I went running. And then we use past simple if we're naming what we did or describing it. So for example, I ran a marathon.

right? I would never say, you know, just I ran in general and say I went running. But when I say I ran a mile, I ran a marathon, then we convert to the past simple. Right. Or I ran up X mountain, some kind of mountain, right? So yeah, you're right. We don't just say, yeah, I ran yesterday. I mean, I suppose you could, but it's not very common, right? And we're all about what native speakers usually say.

Exactly. Right. And so part of it might be that when you give more information about it, you're saying you ran a mile, you ran a marathon, you're sort of making it more specific point in the past that it was completed because, you know, you ran that mile, you ran that marathon, it is a little more specific.

But it is kind of tricky. But that will help if you look at the sentence, look at what you're trying to say. If you're naming the actual activity, the actual thing you ran or swam, then you'll know. So let's give a bunch of examples. Okay. I like the skiing, snowboarding example. So very similar to sledding, right? So if the activity is I went skiing, if you're naming exactly what you skied, like what kind of trail –

What kind of mountain? For example, I skied a black diamond run. Then we put that into the simple past. Right, Aubrey? Exactly. If someone just says, what did you do yesterday? Oh, I went skiing. But if you're giving specifics, I skied two black diamonds. I skied at Snowbird. You're giving specifics about the activity. Then you use past simple. Yeah.

Yes, I love that. That makes total sense. What about hiking? We're so active in our examples today. I know because it's all the activities. This is where it gets tricky, right? If the activity is you just say I went hiking. But then if you're naming the hike, I hiked Mount Everest, right? Right. Or a completed goal, a completed action.

Yeah, here in Colorado we like to talk about hiking 14ers, like mountains that sit at 14,000 feet above sea level. And people like to bag the 14ers, meaning they like to keep a list of how many they've hiked and all this stuff. So I hiked a 14er last weekend.

Yes. And that's where I've had students ask me, why is someone switching in the same sentence from past progressive to past simple? This is often why it happens. Someone might say, I went hiking yesterday and I hiked a 14er. You have past progressive, then past simple when they get more specific.

Yeah, I think that's something really important to understand about the way natives speak. They don't just start a conversation and say, I'm going to use this tense the whole time. We weave in and out of different tenses, Aubrey. Exactly. Yes, it changes a lot as what we're saying changes, right? So a couple more here. Swimming. I went swimming, but I swam a mile. And jogging. I went jogging. I jogged a mile. Same as running. What about surfing? I went surfing, you know, but I surfed in a competition last year.

Yeah. Or maybe I surfed a giant wave in Maui. Right. The more specific we get, we're going to use past simple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you would never say I went surfing in a competition last year. Right. You would. That doesn't make any sense. Exactly. Because it has become a specific point in time when we're giving details.

Yeah. What about grocery shopping? We're moving out of sports into errands. Yeah. Because I was thinking about this quite a bit. Like, when do we do that? When do we have the present progressive and present simple for the same activity? And it's anything like this that the more specifics we give. So for example, I went grocery shopping yesterday, but then with specifics, I shopped at WinCo yesterday. And we wouldn't say I grocery shopped at WinCo. We just are going to leave out unnecessary words. We should be like, I shopped at WinCo.

That makes total sense. So once we start to get into real details, you know, where did you go? What exact, you know, what kind of place did you go to? We use the simple past, right, Aubrey? Exactly. Okay. You just realized that your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other sites. Indeed is all you need.

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Okay. So anything else we need to know here for this grammar? Yes. And I have received questions from students about this before, so we want to clarify. For some activities that you would expect to be past progressive, like for example, eating breakfast, right? We always use past simple. So?

So this is a little tricky. You know, I wouldn't say I was eating breakfast just by itself. We would always say I ate breakfast. Right. Same with like I went out, I went to a restaurant. We don't say I was going to a restaurant by itself. It's kind of interesting. By itself. Only if something else interrupted that action. Right. I was eating breakfast and my friend walked by the window of the diner. Right. Exactly. In that case. But that's a different scenario for another day.

Yeah. So we're going to have a part two here because for most activities, it's just past simple like this, right? I ate breakfast. And the only time we use past progressive is when we describe an action that was interrupted. Some of the few exceptions are these kind of activities, hiking, jogging, running, that we, it's because if we don't have specifics about it and we're talking about an activity in general, we use the past progressive.

Ooh, I love when we get into grammar. This is good stuff to challenge our listeners and let our listeners kind of clean up their grammar a little bit. So good. So we should definitely have our listeners hit follow on the podcast. Will that one be here on Allers English, Aubrey? Yes. Yep. Right here on Allers English, we'll do a part two, past progressive for interrupted or simultaneous actions. We'll give lots of examples so that you guys know how to use past progressive tense.

Excellent. So guys, that's coming up in the next couple of weeks. So hit that follow button right now so you don't miss part two to complete this series. Should we dive into a role play? Yes. You are telling me about a recent ski trip in this role play. We'll see if it's at all accurate for your recent ski trip. Let's see. Let's see. Here we go. Oh, it was so fun. We went skiing every day of the trip. I'm so jealous. Did you do any black diamonds?

Yes, I skied a couple black diamonds. I crashed once pretty hard. Oh, that is why I don't ski. Were you hurt badly? Oh no, it was pretty minor luckily. What about the food? Did the resort have a good restaurant? Yes, there were a few different eateries, so we were always trying new spots.

Nice. Okay. So I'm excited to go through this because you can see a little more why we opted for one of the other. So we started, you said we went skiing every day because you're not giving specifics. It's sort of the activity in general. You're going to use past progressive.

We went skiing every day of the trip. Nice. And then I said, you said, I'm so jealous. Did you do any black diamonds? Right. Yeah. And this is past simple because you're asking about a specific moment in time. Actually skiing that black diamond would be past simple. Getting more specific. And I said, yes, I skied a couple of black diamonds. So we would never say, yes, I went skiing a couple of black diamonds. It sounds very weird to me.

Yes, exactly. That is incorrect because when we're making it, you're talking about a specific moment in time in the past when you skied to that black diamond has to be past simple. Love it. And then I said, I crashed once pretty hard. And same thing you would never say I was crashing. No. No, right? Past simple because it's at a specific moment in time. Specific thing that happened and we know where to, we know on what kind of trail and all those details. Exactly.

Exactly. And then I say, that's why I don't ski. Were you hurt badly? And so I'm again using past simple because if you were hurt, that would have happened at a specific moment in time. Right. Exactly. And then you said, oh, what about the food? Always an important question, right? Yes. Let's pivot away from you being hurt. Did the resort have a good restaurant? Right. So now we're using simple past because we know where we are. It's very specific.

Exactly. Right. And then you said, oh, we were always trying new spots. And this is one of those places where you have an option because you can use past progressive. We were trying. We were always trying new spots. And you could say we tried a lot of new spots because the context is either at these specific points in time we tried new spots or more in general on the trip we were trying new spots.

Yes. Nice. We need to change the wording just a little bit there if we change the grammar, but we do have options grammatically speaking. Yeah. And this reminds me of last Friday we went skiing and do you ever do this where you realize you've had a lot of choices and you've made the wrong choice? Absolutely. Far too often. Yeah, this happened to us last Friday. We went skiing. We said, okay, it's going to be a great day. It's sunny. It's beautiful. We're getting out there.

We chose the one mountain that was literally, it's called A Basin. It's a basin and it's enveloped in clouds. So it's hidden from the good weather. So once we left A Basin, so we had a little vertigo because there was a moment when you're skiing, when the sky looks just like the ground and you become really disoriented, right? It was cold. It was bare. It was all...

awful. We're like, we went home at like 11. We're like, forget this. We're not doing this anymore. Then we start driving back to the condo and we see, oh my gosh, Keystone looks beautiful. Vail looks beautiful. It's a sunny day. We didn't even know. So we made the wrong choice. All of these other resorts have these sunny, beautiful

hills could be on. What a bummer. What a bummer. You got to make the right choices in life, Aubrey. Oh, I love that. Well, that is a good takeaway. Make the right choices in life, guys, not just with grammar, but also with your ski trips. Exactly. What else do we want to add to the takeaway? Anything else? I mean, it is about making the right grammar choices. I think that's a great link here, Aubrey.

And I think this is such a great connection skill chatting about what you've done recently. And you may find yourself avoiding doing that if you're worried about choosing past simple or past progressive. So today's tips should really clarify because you want to have those conversations with people.

Yes. So good. And again, it's great that we went into grammar today. Guys, we try to bring up grammar as much as we can. So if you have a good grammar question that has been bothering you for a while, make sure to send it in to us and we will do our best to answer that question. All right. Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay. This was fun. All right, Avery. You have a good day. Talk to you soon. You too. Bye. Bye.

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