I understand that when we use the past continuous tense, our listener usually understands what time we are talking about. Like, "I was working at 10 pm last night."
However, I saw a sentence in a textbook it wrote that "I was in bed asleep at 4.30 this morning." I wonder why it didn't use past continuous tense; can we say "I was being in bed asleep at 4.30 this morning" or not? Plus, I'm not sure if the verb to be can be continuous or not for this case.
Moreover for verbs that can't be continuous, if I write a specific time, I have to use past tense not continuous tense, right? For example, "I saw a very big bird at 10 am this morning." Is it correct to use past tense "saw" in this case?
Best Answer
Right, as you say, when we use the past continuous tense there is usually some context that makes it clear to the reader / listener when the event was happening. Your question seems to be mostly about stative verbs (1) to be; and (2) to see.
(1) Be
Verbs that are not typically used in continuous tenses are called stative. Examples are see, be, want, hear. So we say "I was in bed..." not "I was being...". There are some cases when stative verbs like "be" are used in a continuous tense and these cases tend to change the meaning of the verb.
(2) See
As to the correctness of "I saw a very big bird at 10am this morning", this will depend on the context. It is a grammatically correct sentence; it appropriately expresses the idea that at 10am a bird appeared in view.
However, if you wanted to express some kind of continuous observation then you would need a different verb, not see (which is stative). E.g. you might say, "when someone knocked on the door at 10am I was watching a big bird".