Past continous or past simple?
Hi,
I have a question for you: There is a task in my English workbook to choose the correct answer in a sentece The girls laughed/were laughing when they saw the funny film. The "problem" is that one of my teachers says correct is laughed, but other says that correct is were laughing. Could you please tell me which version is really correct?

Question

Answer

both are correct... grammatically, but:
... laughed =  started to laugh
... were laughing = were in process of laughing (already)

Answer

Both are correct - you would need more context to insist on one sentence as preferable to the other.

Answer

Past simple is used for completed actions in the past = 'The girls laughed when they saw the funny film'.
When using past continuous we use the past auxiliary 'be' (was) followed by the present participle of the main verb (ing) = 'The girls were laughing when they saw the funny film'. We usually need two clauses to describe two past events. In this case, one event is interrupting another 'ongoing' event (the continuous).

Hope this helps.

Answers · 3

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