You are welcome to answer questions posted in the Ask a Teacher forum as long as your suggestions, help, and advice reflect a good understanding of the English language. If you are not a teacher, you will need to state that clearly at the top of your post. Please note, all posts are moderated by our in-house language experts, so make sure your suggestions, help, and advice house the kind of information an international language teacher would offer. If not, and your posts do not contribute to the topic in a positive way, they will be subject to deletion.
Hello Mrpedantic,thanks for the last time..
actually you only answered my question about explaining the grammar but didn't fix my sentences..here they are:
1-the police man was smoking on Sunday, the policeman smoked on Sunday" what does the last sentence imply? Does it mean that the speaker watched the policeman till he finished smoking?
2-why are both simple past & past progressive correct in the first part of the sentence but only the simple past tense is correct in the second part( i.e. with the verb waltzed) I think we ought to use past progressive with waltz,
Because it takes a long time? The sentence is "the room floor shook (or was shaking) while they waltzed".
3- I've read that we say"I was going to auditions every day befor I got my job)but we say"we ate mutton every day"so why is the past progress used in the first one although the verb is finished?
1 Not necessarily- they could just have seen the policeman with a cigarette
2 If you had 'the floor was hsaking while they were waltzing', then, for me, the floor would have had to vibrate for the duration of the waltz.
3 It adds some emphasis to the number of auditions attended.
Re:past progressive 
Re: past progressive 
Linear Mode
