another question about tense .

[liuchunsheng123456]

I looked at cars which were passing in the street .
I was looking at cars which were passing in the street .
are both sentences right ? if so , which one is more natural ?and in what conditions we should use them ?
Many , many thanks in advance .

[Sean Priestley]

first is incorrect, couse you can't look at something as if you click a mouse: looking is a process and clicking a mouse is an event. thus, whenever you describe a process, you should use progressive/continuous tense. therefore, you "were looking."

edit: well, you could take a look and then return to what you were doing, so the first example is correct as well. but if you kept looking at them for more than several seconds, you should use the second example (with progressive).

thus, they are both correct, only in the first one you looked and turned, and in the second one you were looking continuously for a relatively long period of time...

[liuchunsheng123456]

in the second sentence , in my opinon , the process " looking " only happened before the action " stop ". but in the first sentence , the action " look" can both happen "beore or after " the action " stop ".
could you tell me whether i am right or not ?