What is the difference between past participle and past progressive?

Answer 1

The past participle is a word.

For regular verbs the past participle ends in -ed

eg walk -- walked, listen -- listened, bike -- biked, ski -- skied.

For irregular verbs the past participle can be the same as the base verb or a different word

eg cut -- cut, run -- ran, eat -- ate.

The past participle is used to make present perfect tense = have/has +past participle or past perfect tense = had + past participle

I have been to Korea. She has written a book. They have eaten the cake.

I had walked to the cinema. She had biked to the cinema. We had skied all weekend.

The past participle is also used to make passive tense = be + past participle.

Tea is grown in Sri Lanka. The butter is kept in the fridge. The toast is made.

Past progressive or past continuous is a verb phrase it has two words - be verb + present participle.

The be verb is in the past tense ie was or were. The present participle is the base verb +-ing ie walking, talking, listening, biking.

eg was walking, were biking, was listening

Past progressive is used to talk about an action that was in progress in the past:

I was walking to town. She was listening to music. They were skiing all weekend.

Often past progressive is used to show an action that continued over some time and past simple to show an action that happened during the longer time:

I was walking home on Saturday night and I saw an accident.

Answer 2

A past participle is a verb form used to form verb tenses, such as the present perfect or past perfect, while the past progressive (or past continuous) is a conjugated form of "to be" plus the present participle (-ing form) of a verb, used to indicate an ongoing action in the past. The past participle does not indicate a specific time frame, while the past progressive specifically describes actions that were ongoing at a specific point in the past.