He changed/was changing all his life.

[Marika33]

I've learned from native speakers (even though I was taught differently at school) that they don't usually use the past continuous with duration (instead they use the past simple), but here in this sentence I think the past simple doesn't work very well. Is it OK to use the past continuous instead?

• He changed all his life.
• He was changing all his life.

 

[Tarheel]

Another thing native speakers don't do much of is talk about grammar. (Is it different where you're from?

He has changed - He's different.
He is changing - He's undergoing a transformation.

Do you have a real life example we can talk about?

 

[Piscean]

I've learned from native speakers (even though I was taught differently at school) that they don't usually use the past continuous with duration (instead they use the past simple)

That is not correct. We frequently use the past continuous to express duration.

 

[jutfrank]

He changed all his life.
He was changing all his life.

We can't tell from this what you mean.

It's no good trying to learn subtle differences in aspect by making up your own uncontextualised sentences. You'll learn much better by looking at good examples of use uttered in plenty of illustrative context by native speakers.