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Past Continuous Equivalent in Portuguese
The Portuguese equivalent of the English Past Continuous is analogous to the Present Continuous Equivalent in Portuguese. The only difference is that the auxiliary verb Estar must be conjugated in the Past tense, not Present:
Present Continuous Equivalent
Estar [Present tense] + a + Main [Infinitive]
Neste momento estou a escrever um artigo.
Be [Present tense] Main [-ing form]
Right now, I am writing an article.
Past Continuous Equivalent
Estar [Past tense] + a + Main [Infinitive]
Ontem, [?] a escrever um artigo.
Be [Past tense] Main [-ing form]
Yesterday, I was writing an article.
As you can see, there’s a question mark replacing the Past tense of Estar. Why? As you may know, we have two kinds of Past tense in Portuguese: Preterite and Imperfect (Pretérito Perfeito and Pretérito Imperfeito). Whether we use one or the other, depends on the situation → Completed action vs. Ongoing action. Read on.
Completed action
As you may know, we use the Preterite to talk about completed actions:
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