If you confuse the tenses of the English verb Past Simple / Past Continuous, the sentence translation exercises will help you to practically understand the difference between the grammatical design of two different tense categories.
Past simple
Translate into English using the correct tense:
- I was invited to a birthday party yesterday.
- John had an accident two days ago. Good thing he didn't get hurt.
- Yesterday mom bought some goldfish and we set up an aquarium.
- Who broke the window in the office last night?
- I graduated from university five years ago and now work as an accountant.
- The author of the work emphasized the importance of studying this problem.
- What time did your lesson end yesterday? Have you gone through the Past Simple/Past Continuous examples?
- A week ago I decided to exercise regularly.
- Dinosaurs inhabited the planet many thousands of years ago.
- What year did you go to college?
Past Continuous
The time period indicated in the sentence determines the application of the Past Simple / Past Continuous formulas. The exercises are given below. Paying special attention to the circumstances of the time, translate the examples using Past Continuous verbs:
- Yesterday from two to four I worked diligently on my math assignment.
- From May to August last year, the university held sports competitions.
- How long did you knit this sweater yesterday?
- On Monday, for the whole morning, the teacher explained the Past Simple/Past Continuous formulas to us. We discussed the exercises in the textbook for about an hour.
- Yesterday from morning till night John was repairing a wrecked car.
- What did you do between five and six o'clock last Saturday night?
- From October to December, students completed practical tasks.
- From lunch until late at night, loud music played in the neighbors' yard.
- How long did it take you to write an essay on literature yesterday?
Past Simple/Past Continuous
Translation exercises are aimed primarily at developing the ability to use the appropriate grammatical formulas. Below are sentences that need not only be correctly translated into English, but also correctly identified in terms of belonging to one of the two past tenses.
- I left my keys in my office yesterday.
- Who lost his passport on school grounds a couple of days ago?
- Yesterday, from two to five, Elizabeth was hotbirthday cake.
- Did you go to the movies last week?
- And they lived happily ever after.
- Throughout the film, the main character felt guilty.
- On October 9th, Bill returned the book to the library.
- From Monday to Friday, they were diligently preparing for the upcoming Halloween.
- I don't know what project Josh has been working on all night yesterday.
- How long did you translate this text yesterday?
To fully assimilate the theoretical material, it is recommended to perform other exercises for translating from Russian into English.
