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Hello!
大家好!
This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question about using “when” with past simple or past continuous tenses.
本周《名师答疑》，我们回答如何把when与过去一般时态或过去进行时态连用的问题。
Hi, I'm a learner from China.
你好，我是来自中国的一名学习者。
Could you please help me with the following question?
你能帮我回答以下问题吗？
Is the sentence "The good news came when we weren't expecting it" grammatically correct?
“好消息不期而至”这句话的语法正确吗？
If it is correct, how can we understand the following rule:
如果正确，那该如何理解下面的规则：
As a general rule, you should use “while” in a clause with a continuous action, using a verb in a continuous tense.
作为一般规则，while在从句中表示连续的动作，动词要用进行时态。
Use “when” in a clause with a single action, using a simple past or present tense.
when在从句中表示单独的动作，使用一般过去时或一般现在时。
Many thanks, Jinye.
非常感谢您的解答，金叶。
Thank you for writing, Jinye.
谢谢你的来信，金叶。
Keep up the good work learning English with us!
和我们一起坚持努力学习英语吧！
The sentence “The good news came when we weren't expecting it” is grammatically acceptable.
“好消息不期而至”这句话在语法上是没问题的。
As for “when” and “while” we answered a question about How to Use ‘When’ and ‘While’ in an earlier Ask a Teacher program.
至于when和while的用法，我们在之前的《名师答疑》节目中回答了这个问题，节目标题是“如何使用when和while”。
We explained that some experts call both words “subordinating conjunctions” in some cases.
我们解释说，在某些情况下，一些专家把这两个词都称为“从属连词”。
This means they signal how pieces of information are related to one another.
即这些词表明信息之间是如何相互关联的。
And we shared that general rule to give an idea of how they are used in English.
我们讲到了这条一般规则，方便大家了解这两个词在英语中的用法。
Let’s look at these two examples:
让我们来看这两个例子：
When the phone rang, I was making dinner.
当电话响起时，我正在做饭。
While I was making dinner, the phone rang.
当我正在做饭时，电话响了。
“While” and “when” both relate to time although “while” usually signals that two events are happening at the same time.
虽然while通常表示两件事同时发生，但while和when都与时间有关。
Another issue to consider is how people use language in real life.
另一个需要考虑的问题是人们在现实生活中如何使用语言。
Sometimes, the real-life use of language does not seem to equal textbook rules.
有时，语言在现实生活中的用法并不等同于教科书上的规则。
For example, many native users of English use “when” with continuous action.
例如，许多英语母语人士把when和连续动作连用。
In fact, “when” is used with past progressive more often than “while” in the Corpus of Contemporary American English.
事实上，在“当代美国英语语料库”中，when比while更常与过去进行时连用。
Here are some example sentences from the corpus.
以下是语料库中的一些例句。
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a cowboy.
在我成长过程中，我想成为一名牛仔。
I was thinking about her when we were talking.
我们聊天的时候我在想她。
When he was running for President, Obama gave electrifying speeches.
当奥巴马竞选总统时，他发表了振奋人心的演讲。
Please let us know if this explanation has helped you, Jinye.
请让我们知道这个解释是否对你有帮助，金叶。
And that’s Ask a Teacher.
以上就是《名师答疑》
I’m Gena Bennett.
我是吉娜·班尼特。
