Past continuous biography books
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Il risultato per il lettore è un fitto labirinto letterario di famiglie collegate (e quindi storie intrecciate), in cui un personaggio viene seguito per diverse pagine, poi si passa a seguire un altro, legato in qualche modo al primo, la cui storia conduce in un’altra vita correlata, e andando avanti così, il lettore svolta diversi angoli e si ritrova ad affrontare di nuovo il personaggio di partenza.
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- They was eating biryani. To describe a background action in a story
- I was walking to the masjid when I met Haris.
- The kids were playing when it started raining.
Common Time Expressions in Past Continuous Tense
These expressions help establish the timeframe in which the action was happening.
Rules of Past Continuous Tense
- Structure: Combine was/were with the -ing form of the main verb.
- Negative Form: Use not after was/were to form negatives.
- They were not working yesterday.
- Questions: Invert was/were and the subject to form questions.
- Were you playing football?
- Non-Action Verbs: Avoid using this tense with non-action verbs like know, believe, or want.
Past Continuous vs Future Continuous
Here’s a short comparison table for Past Continuous vs Future Continuous:
Examples of Past Continuous Tense
✅ Affirmative
- Bilal was walking to the mosque.
- They were playing cricket after Asr.
- I was reading a book yesterday.
- We were eating together.
- Amina was learning French.
❌ Negative
- I was not watching TV last night.
- They were not listening to the teacher.
- She was not preparing food.
- We were not coming to the event.
- Hamid was not driving fast.
❓ Interrogative
- Was she reciting the Quran?
- Were they doing homework?
- Was Ali talking on the phone?
- Were we playing too loudly?
- Was Fatima helping her mother?
Common Mistakes and Corrections
- He was play football.
‘I was studying for my exams’, which could mean that the studying continues even now).
📙 ‘Mr Riley was turning over the leaves of the book …’
– George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
…
SIMPLE PAST
This is the most common past tense form in the quoted text.
I hope that you are now able not only to comprehend them when you encounter them in a written text (like a novel), but also to use them correctly in your own speech whenever you tell a story of your own.
Past Continuous
Synopsis
A reissue of one of the classic works of twentieth-century Jewish fiction; Past Continuous depicts the crises in the lives of three Israeli men - Goldman, Israel, and Caesar - as they attempt to focus their lives and extract meaning from chaos.
E non mi riferisco a grandi storie. The simple past describes an action that is completed in the past, like the following:
📙 ‘She thought Mr Riley would have a respect for her now …’
📙 ‘but he presently looked at her, and said,’
📙 ‘Maggie, with deepening colour, went without hesitation to Mr Riley’s elbow and looked over the book …’
– George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
…
PAST PERFECT and PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS
This tense is a bit similar to the past progressive in that it describes an action or state of being that began in the past and continued for some time.
When used correctly, these allow the narrative to sound believable and interesting. 1995.
La stessa frase à la Shabtai contiene in sé un mare intero: si allarga magari per un’intera pagina, a volte anche di più, scivolando e scorrendo in ogni direzione, avanti e indietro, destra e sinistra, sopra e sotto, raccogliendo un flusso di commenti e associazioni, per poi giungere al punto finale senza avere perso nulla della propria forza musica e fascino.
Scrivere un libro è come spazzare Rechov Allenby con uno spazzolino da denti, da Kikar Hamoshavot fino al mare, definì il suo processo di scrittura Shabtai.
Dai materiali ritrovati dopo la sua morte sappiamo che di ogni frase scriveva cinque versioni, e su ognuna lavorava per anni, per lasciarne alla fine quattro varianti alternative.
Amos Gitai: Zihron Devarim – L’inventario.
‘thinking’)
Consider the following quoted line:
📙 ‘… it had been evident that he thought nothing of her before …’
– George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
This is not an example of the past perfect continuous because ‘evident’ is not a verbal present particple.
Intendo proprio le cose più piccole.
Un autentico monolite come quello nella foto qui sotto che viene dal mitico film del mitico Stanley.
È una storia che non dipende da tradizionali movimenti di trama, non gioca sullo sviluppo cronologico, non riposa sull’interruzione di capitoli o scene.
L'azione di partenza è data nella prima frase,
Il padre di Goldman morì il primo di aprile, mentre Goldman si suicidò il primo di gennaio: entrambi i decessi si riflettono sugli amici di Goldman, Caesar e Israel.
C’era stato davvero poco nel suo lavoro precedente per preparare il lettore al talento narrativo che stava per rivelare. While novels, magazines, and some plays were considered acceptable for them to read, they were discouraged from reading works of science, philosophy, theology, or the law. 📚
I have chosen this short piece from George Eliot’s classic, The Mill on the Floss (1860), where the little girl Maggie overhears her father and a schoolmaster discuss her brother’s studies.
The reader is drawn into a mass of family tangles and social exhaustion -- wives and ex-wives, passing mistresses and crushing marriages, desperate intrigues and disappointments, the loss of children, friends, ideals. A volte era qualcosa di molto transitorio, di assai minuscolo. This is because although George Eliot was describing a visit that had taken place in the past, Mr Riley was speaking and acting in his present – hense the simple present tense and the imperative.
✍️ When you are retelling a story, remember to conjugate verbs in the tense that suits the subject’s action (whether that is the narrator, who is describing something in the past – or else a character within the story, who is most likely acting in their own present tense).
…
This lesson has covered the three main past tense formsthat are used in storytelling.
The schoolmaster, Mr Riley, does not approve of girls like Maggie wanting to study anything academic. Come nel mitico Ecce Bombo (per me a tutt’oggi il miglior film di Moretti, e l’unico suo che mi sia davvero piaciuto) i personaggi sembrano essenzialmente impegnati nell’indimenticabile massima pronunciata da Olga:
Giro, vedo gente, mi muovo, conosco, faccio delle cose.
Si direbbe anche messa in scena un po’ cialtrona: per esempio il fotografo Cesar ha l’abitudine di porsi tra la sua modella e la luce generando un’ombra che anche un dilettante sa di dover evitare.
La locandina del film diretto da Amos Gitai nel 1995.
Lesson #155: Tenses to Tell Stories With: The Past Progressive, Simple Past, and Past Perfect Continuous
If you have ever read books set in Victorian Britain, you may have noticed that women were generally discouraged from reading any books that might cause them to become intellectual.
1995.
I protagonisti di queste “descrizioni molecolari”, come le definì Amos Oz, sono tre ebrei ashkenaziti di Tel Aviv, Goldman, Caesar e Israel. To describe an action in progress at a specific time in the past
At 7 PM, I was praying Maghrib.
She was studying all night yesterday.
2.
E, trattandosi di esordio, Inventario sembrava già invece l’opera di un artista maturo, un romanzo-fiume, un libro che come un fiume ha rami, affluenti, derivazioni – ci si galleggia sopra come su una zattera, seguendo la corrente, con la sensazione qua e là di andare sotto, di rovesciarsi e tornare a galla, senza riuscire sempre a tenere la rotta della navigazione, lasciandosi trasportare qua e là anche col rischio di smarrirsi e prendere un corso secondario… un flusso di coscienza senza interruzione che inizia al rigo uno e prosegue per trecento pagine, di talento ne dimostra in modo considerevole.
In qualche modo volevo catturare tutte queste cose dentro il libro.
Una lettura impegnativa anche per un lettore concentrato e attento, da affrontare lentamente, in molte sedute, massimo 20-30 pagine alla volta.