"When I (to look) at them, they (to smile) at me".

[milan2003_07]

There is a sentence from Golizinskiy's "Grammar Book with Exercises" (published in Russian). The sentences in this book are given without context, you need to choose the right tense.
You can choose between past simple and past continuous.

"When I (to look) at them, they (to smile) at me".

I suppose there two possibilities here:

1. "When I looked at them, they smiled at me".
This sentence means that two actions happened consecutively. First, I looked at them and then they smiled at me (after I had looked at them).

2. "When I looked at them, they were smiling at me".
This means that I saw them being already in the process of smiling when I looked at them. In other words, before I looked at them they had already been smiling at me for some time.

I doubt which option to choose. Maybe both are fine, but mean slightly different things (as I've explained above).

Looking forward to your commentaries.

 

[jutfrank]

Also:

When I look at them, they smile at me.
When I was looking at them, they were smiling at me.
When I was looking at them, they smiled at me.
When I'm looking at them, they're smiling at me.

And so on ...

What's Golzinsky's point here? What is he trying to do with this?

 

[milan2003_07]

Also:

When I look at them, they smile at me.
When I was looking at them, they were smiling at me.
When I was looking at them, they smiled at me.
When I'm looking at them, they're smiling at me.

And so on ...

What's Golzinsky's point here? What is he trying to do with this?

Oh, thanks, Jutfrank!
You've suggested some more possibilities I haven't thought about.
I was thinking only about past tenses when doing the exercise because that task was focused on past simple and past continuous.
I don't know Golizinskiy's point here. The book has no answers, just exercises. It's expected that a teacher knows correct answers and the teacher will correct students, if necessary. That's the way teachers worked with me during the active use of Golizinskiy at school.
Sometimes I find the correct answers on the Internet, but I don't always believe them. To be more precise, I often prefer to consult native speakers to know if it's correct or not.

By the way, Golizinskiy also has a book on conversational English. It's a good one as it offers topics for discussion and developing speaking skills.

Голицынский - Google Search

 

[milan2003_07]

Also:

When I look at them, they smile at me.
When I was looking at them, they were smiling at me.
When I was looking at them, they smiled at me.
When I'm looking at them, they're smiling at me.

And so on ...

What's Golzinsky's point here? What is he trying to do with this?

Apart from the use of the present tenses, I like #2 and #3. #2 sounds very good: "When I was looking at them, they were smiling at me".

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

You suggested more possibilities I hadn't thought about.