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[schminken]

Ok grammar gurus riddle me this:

Yesterday I worked.

Yesterday I was working.

What is the concept behind the past continuous here? The students automatically answered with "It's a longer action in the past." but I wonder if it is something more complicated than that.

I think there are two longer parallel actions happening at the same time. Or am I just making this more complicated than it really is?

[valley_girl]

I think that you would use the simple past unless you were talking about two separate activities happening at or around the same time.

Example:

A: What did you do yesterday? B: I worked all day.

A: I tried calling you yesterday but there was no answer. B: I was working.

(The idea is that I was working when you called.)

[schminken]

So, a question would have to be asked?

What I can't figure out is WHY you can say "Yesterday I was working" if yesterday is a signal word for past simple, unless you see yesterday a long action that is paralell to working. I think I am just thinking too hard about this. It is a question I need answered deep in my soul and my students are good grammarians and always ask questions such as these. :=)

[valley_girl]

A question doesn't have to be asked necessarily, but using the past continuous suggests another action happened at or around the same time, whether it is implicit or explicit.

[kev7161]

The past continuous is usually used when one action began before another, and finished after it (two actions are referred) or when two actions are happening at the same time:

What were you doing when I called you?
I was reading a book (when you called). (meaning I was reading before you called and probably continued to read after the call - - maybe even reading while I talked on the phone to you!) Two actions: reading and telephone call.

Yesterday I was working (when the power went out).

Many times the past continuous is used during a conversation with someone. A specific question doesn't need to be asked, but comparisons are generally there. "So, there I was on the escalator when the power went out. I was stuck for hours!" "Really? I was at work." (riding on the escalator/power went out - - working/power went out)

Simple past is just that. A very simplified version of something that happened in the past. Often it will have a specific time.

I read a book yesterday.
I ate dinner at 6:00.
I went to bed after the evening news.

(Disclaimer: This is how I understand it. I'm sure there will be someone that comes along and disproves this explanation. Take it or leave it.)

[/b]

[Chris_Crossley]

People don't necessarily work for all 24 hours in a day from midnight to midnight. (Goodness knows, it could be the new work regime of the future!) The implication of what event may have been taking place at the same time as when "I was working" depends upon the situation.

However, there may not necessarily be any implied event happening simultaneously, rather it could be a case of an unfinished sentence which would continue with "until", as in "I was working yesterday [until the end of my normal working time]". However, the case can be made that a simultaneous event could be expressed via the word, "during", as in "I was working yesterday [during normal working hours]."

Both "the end of my normal working time" and "normal working hours" could legitimately be considered "events" in this context. The latter happens at the same time, whereas the first one comes at the end, that is, the person is working, then comes the time when work stops.

Hence, the way I see it, one does not have to specify, whether explicitly or implicitly, a simultaneous event, but it seems clear that there has to be an event related to whichever other event is stated using the past continuous.

[schminken]

Chris, I understand what you are saying and it makes sense. However, I am still not sure why a person can say this:

What did you do yesterday? I was working all day yesterday!

if yesterday is a past simple marker which they are all taught in school. If you see yesterday, you have to use simple past or so they have been told.

Is it because:

1. The person has no idea about grammar and it's completely wrong.

2. It was a longer action that was in progress sometime in the past. There's no second action implied. (This is what my students told me they have been taught in the past)

3. There are two longer actions. Yesterday is one. Working is one. They are both hapenning at the same time. Like

While yesterday was happening, I was working

4. A longer action is being interrupted like:

While yesterday was happening, I worked.

or

While I was working, yesterday happened. (which I can't grasp because how can the action of working be longer than a whole day?"

The yesterday is throwing me off.

You all are great! I hope I'm not too much of a bother. It's been driving me insane though.

[lagerlout2006]

I think in the OP it IS the simple past. "Do anything Monday?" "I was working." I worked actually sounds a bit awkward to me (but it's late.)
In either case nothing is implied.


Why did I open this thread? I must have been mad!

[dyak]

I think... if you say both sentences...

In the sentence 'I worked yesterday', the emphasis is (naturally) on yesterday.

Whilst in, 'I was working yesterday', the emphasis is (naturally) on the work.

Nooooo! That's too simple!

To further confuse your students you can ask them to compare:

I was working as a waiter last summer, and

I worked as a waiter last summer.

Cheers.

[leeroy]

I'm with Dyak - "I was working" (in this context) simply adds emphasis to "working", as opposed to anything else in the sentence/clause. I don't see how "yesterday" is a past simple marker at all; with enough imagination any tense can be applied to "yesterday"...

"Yesterday will probably turn out to be the worst day of my life"
"The dinosaur could have drunk bleach yesterday, but it didn't"
"If I hadn't been working yesterday, she wouldn't have kissed that blue camel."

Time to skin up...

[Teacher in Rome]

... hope you enjoyed your spliff, Leeroy...

I think you're right when you say that "I was working" adds emphasis to the "work". Sometimes (though not always), the present perfect continuous and present perfect simple are only different in the amount of emphasis placed on the action:

I have been working all day. (emphasis on the continuity of my work)
I have worked all day. (not so much emphasis on working, in my opinion.)

[carnac]

Weighing in with another opinion:
Anything "past simple", continuous or not, is an action that has finished somehow/sometime in the past.
"While I was talking on the phone, someone knocked at rhe door". The talking continued over time, the knock was finished and done in the middle of it. At the time you say this, the "talking on the phone" has finished. Past, done, completed. You are not still talking on the phone.
Different example with two continuous usages: "While I was talking,she was cooking". You were both doing things at the same time, over a period of time, which are now both finished.
It gets more complicated when you compare the Past Simple Continuous with the Past Perfect: "I was talking on the phone when suddenly he interrupted me" and "I had been talking on the phone when suddenly he interrupted me". Both imply a past interrupted action;both are valid in the sense that there was a continuing action in the past that was interrupted. One states, grammatically correctly, that the continuing past action had something happen in the middle (or somewhere); the second says that something happened (or began happening) before something else and that the action was interrupted.
The primary difference I seem to see is that the Perfect is used orally to indicate a time more remote from the speaker's present. I was watching TV when...I had been watching TV when... You are a little further away in time. But, this could well be subjective.

[Will.]

Well folks the truth is ...

'yesterday I was working' intimates the functioning of the little grey cells at a particular moment in time

whereas;

'Yesterday I worked' indicates a ceasing of the functioning of those little grey cells

And

Today I do not work

And

Today I am not working

mean

I am not getting paid for answering grammar questions

[Gordon]

[Gordon]

I wish my students asked me questions like this. I still get "falled" and "thunk" and this after 6+ years of English.