I was working

Question

What is the difference with I was working on Monday and I worked on Monday. I know one is past continious and one past.  Which is correct and why?

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

Both are correct and are pretty interchangeable.

Abbie1948 · Answer

They are both correct, depending upon the context.

"I worked" is simple past. We use this to talk about:

Short, quickly finished actions. "I finished my dinner"
repeated events in the past "When I was a child I walked to school every day"
Longer situations in the past "I grew up in Durham"

So "I worked on Monday" could mean "I don't usually work on Mondays, but I worked this Monday" i.e. it was a short, quickly finished action in the past.

"I was working" is past continuous

We use this to talk about
something that was happening at a particular time in the past
"I couldn't come for lunch, because I was working on Monday"

We use it with the simple present to talk about something that happened in the middle of a longer event:
"I was working on Monday when the roof fell in"

I was working

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