Lesson 12 - Past Progressive Tense

会話

City

English

Sarah sees Mary downtown while she is on her lunch break. They stop and talk for a few minutes.

Sarah: I saw you riding your bike yesterday. Where were you going?

Mary: I was going to my Business Communication class. I have a class every Tuesday and Thursday evening.

Sarah: How do you like it?

Mary: I was having trouble at first, but I’m starting to enjoy it now. This is the first course I’ve taken in years, so it took me a while to get used to studying again.

Sarah: Why are you taking the course?

Mary: I want to be a Project Manager. My work will pay for all the courses I need to take to get a Project Management Certificate.

Sarah: Wow! That’s very ambitious. How many courses do you have to take?

Mary: I have to complete ten courses. I was hoping to finish in two years, but I think it will take me a little bit longer.

Sarah: I guess you’re really busy these days.

Mary: Yeah. I have some free time on Saturday though. We should go for coffee.

Sarah: Sure. What time?

Mary: 1:00 at the usual place.

Sarah: See you then.

Mary: Bye.

語彙と例文

I saw you riding your bike.	あなたが自転車に乗っているのを見ました。
I was having trouble ___.	私は___に問題がありました。
ambitious	野心的
to finish	終える
busy	忙しい
to guess	推し量る
We should go ___.	私たちは行くべき ___。

文法

Present Participle

The present participle is a form of a verb that is used in the creation of the progressive tenses. The present participle is formed by adding ing to the end of a verb. If the verb ends in e and is more than three letters, the final e is dropped.

The following table shows some examples of the present participle.

Verb	Present Participle
be	being
do	doing
make	making
see	seeing
think	thinking

The Past Progressive Tense

The past progressive tense, also called past continuous, refers to a continuing action or state that was happening at some point in the past.

It is used to indicate:

that an action was in progress in the past when another action happened
a habitual or repeated action in the past
that an action was in progress during a specific time or period of time in the past.

The past progressive is formed by using the past tense of the verb be with the present participle of a verb. The present participle is formed by adding ing to the end of a verb. If the verb ends in e and is more than three letters, the final e is dropped.

I	was going
you	were going
he / she / it	was going
we	were going
they	were going

例

What were you doing?
I was walking to the store when you phoned.
The dog was sleeping when I walked by.
We were thinking about going to Costa Rica for our vacation, but eventually decided to go to Ecuador instead.