I just watched The Big Sleep (1946) and it had some great rain scenes, from both outside and inside where you could see and hear the rain hitting and running down the windows. Aside from Part 3, I think that most, if not all, of the rest of them have at least some rain. You'll drive yourself crazy.Friday the 13th (1980) has a good stretch of heavy rain at night, and from a critical perspective, it's generally considered to be the best one of the series. ![]() The second one suggests that, if my usual walk is an out-and-back, I was somewhere near my turnaround point when I witnessed the accident.īut don't let those little details get in the way of my main point: When you just look at two sentences – one in the simple past, the other in the past progressive – don't search for some difference in meaning. The first one indicates that at least some of the streets in my neighborhood have sidewalks. Notice how I'm sneaking in some additional information with these two versions. I was in the middle of my walk with the dog when I suddenly heard some tires squeal.I was out walking my dog on the sidewalk when I suddenly heard some tires squeal.In fact, I might begin my narrative a bit differently every time I was asked to recount the details: Of course, there are many different ways I could begin this story, not just one. (In fact, that version of the story makes it sound like I may have seen the accident after my walk, not during. An old, blue car came tearing down the street! That part would sound very out of place if I used the simple past when describing the walk with the dog: It explains why I happened to be an eyewitness to the dramatic accident. In this case, that bit about me walking the dog merely sets up the story. Tearing down the street! It careened out of control, and then smashed into three or four I was walking the dog when I suddenly heard some tires squeal. Now there's a question that's asking for a story! So, I might begin: Is it true that you saw that car accident yesterday? What happened? However, let's say someone asks a different question: I wouldn't say, "I was walking the dog," because there was nothing else going on, and there's nothing else to say. Let's imagine a family sitting around a dinner table. Taken by themselves, the sentences don't really have a difference in meaning, they just have a difference in how they get used. That's why it's so hard to analyze two simple sentences in isolation and figure out some subtle difference in meaning. Very few English speakers utter simple sentences like "I walked to the park," or, "It was raining," or, "I saw a dog," unless we are answering a question, or telling a story and furnishing additional information. So, why have both tenses? That's because of context. In that sense, they don't really "mean" anything different. ![]() They both indicate a walk to the park, a walk that happened in the past. I am learning past progressive right now and my brain is telling me that it must be different otherwise, why have simple past and past progressive? But I really like how you added this detail, because it helps explain your conundrum: ![]() Variants of this question have been asked here on ELL many times (for recent examples, see here, here, here, and here).
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