While with past simple | The Grammar Exchange
thegrammarexchange.infopop.cc › topic › while-withAug 09, 2020 · Hello, Ahmed—As subordinating conjunctions, "while" and "as" can indicate "during the time that" or "at the same time as." The choice between the past simple and the past progressive tends to be a choice between those meanings. When the past simple is used with "while" in a sentence like "John cooked supper while I watched TV," the sentence indicates that John cooked supper throughout the time that the speaker watched TV.