past tense

Question

Hello, I would like to ask you about the following sentences.
Where were you yesterday afternoon? I was playing tennis.
I told him to stop. He was driving too fast.
Why is past continuous used in both sentences? Could we also use the past simple instead? Where were you yesterday afternoon? I played tennis. I told him to stop. He drove too fast.
Thank you for your answer

Fivejedjon · Accepted Answer

The progressive (continuous) form is the more natural in both sentences.

In the first, it emphasises the duration of the activity which filled the time-period referred to.
In the second it emphasises the duration of the activity around the time-point of the requet to stop..

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousWhere were you yesterday afternoon? I was playing tennis.

Where were you? implies What were you doing? What activities were you engaged in (during that time period)?

If the question were What did you do yesterday afternoon? you could answer I played tennis, but that's not the (implicit) question.

AnonymousI told him to stop. He was driving too fast.

When you relate a series of events using the simple past tense, it is usually assumed that they happened in the order that you tell them.

I lost the key. (Next) I looked for the key. (Next) I found the key.

Compare: I told him to stop. (Next?) He drove too fast.

If you use the past tense here, it sounds strange because it seems that you told him to stop and after that, he drove too fast.
________________

But that doesn't explain it all, because it sounds wrong even if you reverse the order and say,

He drove too fast. I told him to stop.

The reason is that He drove too fast implies a completed episode of fast driving. If this episode of fast driving has already come to an end, it makes no sense to tell him to stop driving because he has already stopped driving. You need a tense which implies that the driving was still going on at the time you told him to stop, namely, the past continuous.

He was driving too fast, so I told him to stop.
I told him to stop because he was driving too fast.

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

CalifJimWhere were you? implies ....etc

. A fuller, and clearer, explanation than mine.

CalifJim · Answer

fivejedjonA fuller ... explanation ...

Thanks! But I do tend to get wordy.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you very much

past tense

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