Use Past Simple in the sentence 'Yesterday we watched TV for hours'

[Igor Lazarev]

Why do we use Past Simple in the sentence "Yesterday we watched TV for hours", not Past Continuous or Past Perfect Continuous?

[Alan]

Hi Igor,

The meaning of your sentence: 'Yesterday we watched TV for hours' is that the action of 'watching' is now finished. In other words it happened 'yesterday' and that's the reason why the tense is Past Simple. Past Continuous would be used if you were describing an action that was interrupted as in: We were watching television when the telephone rang. Past Perfect Continuous would need to be used with another time in the past as in: After we had been watching TV, the telephone rang.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Reflections

[Anna.ha]

I have a question with past simple tense here by the way. I do not know why tenses are changed in the following context when we tell a story that happened in the past. Is there any rule to apply to this sort of story? Please help me

1- Hey Dad, I've lost my wallet on the beach. We came back to look for it but we didn't find it.
2- Ohh, no. How did that happen?

And I notice that initially it should start with present perfect tense and then past simple tense till the end of the story. What is the reason please?

[Alan]

Hi Anna,

[Anna.ha]

No, for me it's not really true. That is a conversation of a son phoning his Dad telling him something about the first few day of his holiday. What you said was only true if the guy only went to the beach one time and they both knew the time. I think the sentence is acceptable since the guy could go to the beach enjoying it serveral time before he left for other places. He thought he had lost the wallet on the beach but did not know when exactly.

That was a sample conversation in my book and I did not make it up myself at all, Alan. Please continue giving me your comments on this matter.

Thanks