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Narrative

The document discusses various past tenses in English including: - The past continuous and past simple are used together to show that a past simple action occurred within a past continuous action. - The past perfect is used to refer to something that occurred before another past action and is formed with "had" plus the past participle. - Example sentences are provided to illustrate the past simple, past continuous, and past perfect tenses being used together to narrate past events.

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Matea Gašparić
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88 views11 pages

Narrative

The document discusses various past tenses in English including: - The past continuous and past simple are used together to show that a past simple action occurred within a past continuous action. - The past perfect is used to refer to something that occurred before another past action and is formed with "had" plus the past participle. - Example sentences are provided to illustrate the past simple, past continuous, and past perfect tenses being used together to narrate past events.

Uploaded by

Matea Gašparić
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Narrative tenses

Past continuous and past simple

When we use these two tenses together, it shows us that the past simple
action happened in the middle of the past continuous action, while it was in
progress.
The past continuous is made from the past tense of the verb be (was,were) and the
–ing form of a verb:

While I was studying, I suddenly felt sleepy.


 Past simple vs past perfect
These two tenses are both used to talk about things that happened in
the past. However we use past perfect to talk about something that
happened before another action in the past, which is usually expressed
by the past simple.
The past perfect is made from the verb had and the past participle (3rd column) of a verb:

For example: "I had already eaten my dinner when he called."


In other words, First I ate my dinner, then he called.
The most common of these is the past simple.
 
The other three tenses, the past continuous, the past perfect
simple and the past perfect continuous, can help us to say what we
want more efficiently.
It is useful to look at these tenses together in the context of the
function narrating - relating past events.

Bond opened the door very slowly, looked carefully around the room


and walked in. The window was open and the curtains were
blowing in the wind. Clearly someone had left in a hurry.
It is useful to look at these tenses together in the context of the
function narrating - relating past events.

Bond opened the door very slowly, looked carefully around the room


and walked in. The window was open and the curtains were
blowing in the wind. Clearly someone had left in a hurry.
Past simple
 
Past continuous
 
Past perfect
It is useful to look at these tenses together in the context of the
function narrating - relating past events.

Bond opened the door very slowly, looked carefully around the room


and walked in. The window was open and the curtains were
blowing in the wind. Clearly someone had left in a hurry.
Past simple
opened, looked, walked, was
 
Past continuous
were blowing
 
Past perfect
had left
The first three verbs - opened, looked and walked - are a sequence: they are
written in the order that the actions took place. We know this because they are
in the past simple.
 
The past continuous verb, were blowing, shows an action in progress: the
curtains started blowing before he walked into the room and continued to blow
while he was there.
razlika između present perfect i past perefct tense
What’s the difference between have had and had had?
In the present perfect, the auxiliary verb is always have (for I, you, we, they) or has (for he, she, it).
In the past perfect, the auxiliary verb is always had.
We use have had in the present perfect when the main verb is also “have”:
▪ I’m not feeling well. I have had a headache all day.
▪ She has had three children in the past five years. SADAŠNJOST

We use had had in the past perfect when the main verb is also “have”:
▪ Last weekend I just wanted to relax because I had had a busy week.
▪ The director told me he had had a meeting with the president. PROŠLO I PRETPROŠLO VRIJEME
Used to vs would
When we talk about things in the past that are not true any more, we can do it in different ways.
Used to + infinitive
We can use used to to talk about past states that are not true any more.
We used to live in New York when I was a kid.
She used to smoke but she gave up a few years ago.
would
We can use would to talk about repeated past actions that don't happen any more.. Note that
we can't usually use would to talk about past states. We cannot use it with state verbs

Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride.

Every Saturday I used to go on bike rides…

I used to live in New York.

I would live in New York.

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