If you confuse the tenses of the English verb Past Simple / Past Continuous, the exercises for translating sentences will help you in practice understand the difference between the grammatical design of two different time categories.
Past simple
Translate into English using verbs in the appropriate tense form:
- Yesterday I was invited to a birthday.
- John had an accident two days ago. It is good that he was not injured.
- Yesterday mom bought goldfish and we set up an aquarium.
- Who broke the office window last night?
- I graduated from university five years ago and now I work as an accountant.
- The author of the work emphasized the importance of studying this problem.
- What time did your yesterday's lesson end? Have you completed 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 long
The time period specified in the sentence determines the application of the Past Simple / Past Continuous formulas. The exercises are given below. Paying particular attention to the circumstances of the time, translate the examples using verbs in Past Continuous:
- Yesterday, from two to four, I diligently worked on a math assignment.
- From May to August last year, the university held sports competitions.
- How long did you knit this sweater yesterday?
- On Monday, the teacher explained the Past Simple / Past Continuous formulas to us throughout the morning. We discussed the exercises in the textbook for about an hour.
- Yesterday, John was repairing a wrecked car from morning to night.
- What did you do from five to six in the evening last Saturday?
- From October to December, students performed practical tasks.
- From lunch until late at night, loud music played in the neighbors' yard.
- How long did you write an essay on literature yesterday?
Past Simple / Past Continuous
Translation exercises are primarily aimed at developing the ability to use appropriate grammatical formulas. Below are the proposals that need not only to be correctly translated into English, but also correctly identified in terms of belonging to one of the two past tenses.
- Yesterday I left the keys in my office.
- Who lost a passport in the school a couple of days ago?
- From two to five yesterday, Elizabeth baked a birthday 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 worked hard for the upcoming Halloween.
- I don’t know what project Josh worked on all night yesterday.
- How long did you translate this text yesterday?
For complete assimilation of theoretical material, it is recommended to perform other exercises for translation from Russian into English.