Past continuous: I was doing, when we dont use this form

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Past continuous: I was doing …
Past Continuous is about an action, an activity in the past.

Non-continuous Verbs:
Non-continuous Verbs are not used with the Past Continuous.
These verbs are « stative », about state, and not real action or activity.
So, they can’t express a continuous or progressive form.

Here, we present you the most common non-continuous verbs:

Feeling:

have, like, love, hate, prefer, want, desire, wish,

Senses:

appear, feel, hear, see, seem, smell, sound, taste,

Communication:

agree / disagree, deny, mean, promise, satisfy, surprise,

Thinking:

believe, doubt, imagine, forget, know, mean,
notice, realize, recognize, remember, understand,

Others state:

be, belong, concern, depend, involve, matter,
need, owe, own, possess.

I can see you.Notice: with SEE & HEAR, we often use CAN:
I can’t hear you.

We don’t use the continuous form with these verbs, because ther’s not a real action.
Look differences:

Hear:
= receive sound in your ears
= we don’t do any action.
= continuous form IMPOSSIBLE.

Listen:
= we try to hear
= we’re doing an action (we try)
= continuous form POSSIBLE.

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