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

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

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

2

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

3

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?

4

Hi Anna,

It would be acceptable to say simply ‘I’ve lost my wallet’ because there is no indication of when this was but by adding ‘on the beach’ you indicate a time in the past because you are not on the beach as you say it. In that case you need to say: ‘I lost my wallet on the beach’ and then ‘We came back’ ‘we didn’t find it’ ‘How did that happen?’ all follow logically as Past Simple tenses.

Alan

5

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