tenses
I was doing English tasks and saw these sentences:

"How was your holiday?"
"It (rain) the whole time".

I thought it was past perfect, because of "the whole time" and I didn't really know why, but it seemed to me that perfect is more appropriate. But I can choose only between past simple and past continuous (task). So now I think it should be something like "It was raining the whole time". But why? I mean why continuous, not perfect?

Question

tenses
I was doing English tasks and saw these sentences:

"How was your holiday?" 
"It (rain) the whole time".

I thought it was past perfect, because of "the whole time" and I didn't really know why, but it seemed to me that perfect is more appropriate. But I can choose only between past simple and past continuous (task). So now I think it should be something like "It was raining the whole time". But why? I mean why continuous, not perfect?

Answer

You could use continuous to emphasise that you had a negative view of the action.

For example - "He always plays computer games" - a fact.
"He's always playing computer games" - suggests a criticism.

"It was raining the whole time" could work in the same way.

Answer

The best is past simple: It rained the whole time.  Your option of "It was raining the whole time" has a bit of a different meaning, used when the rain was occurring while something else was happening: " It was raining when we landed".

"It had rained the whole time" needs a time element for comparison: "It had rained before we got there" but that can also be "it rained before we got there."

Answer

It rained....sounds the best to an American ear.
Greg and BE Ed have excellent answers.

Answer

Oh no, SIMPLE is more apppropriate than continuous in the answers :D but why?

Answers · 7

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