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Grammar table Past Simple & Past Continuous
 

a) We use the Past Continuous to say that someone was in the middle of doing something at a certain time. The action or situation had already started before this time but hadn’t finished:

Examples:
- This time last year I was living in Brazil.
- What were you doing at 10 o’clock last night?

b) The Past Continuous does not tell us whether an action was finished or not. Perhaps in was finished, perhaps not.

Compare:
Tom was cooking the dinner. (Past Continuous) = He was in the middle of cooking the dinner and we don’t know whether he finished cooking it.

Tom cooked the dinner. (Past Simple) = He began and finished it.

c) We often use the Past Continuous (I was doing) and the Past Simple (I did) together to say that something happened in the middle of something else.

Examples:
Tom burnt his hand when he was cooking the dinner.

I saw Jim in the park. He was sitting on the grass and reading a book.

It was raining when I got up.

While I was working in the garden, I hurt my back.

(!) But to say that one thing happened after another, use the Past Simple:

Yesterday evening Tom was having a bath when the phone rang. He got out of the bath and answered the phone.