N a r r a t i v e T e n s e s
Introduction
When we describe events or tell a story in the past, we use the
narrative tenses: simple past, past continuous, and past
perfect.
TENSES
We use the past We use the past
We use the simple past to perfect to talk about an
continuous for
describe the main events in action or event that
background events or
the story. happened before
longer actions which are
"It was a warm summer interrupted by shorter something else in the
evening when Jack left actions. past.
"Suddenly, he heard a
work." "He was walking along
loud noise. A large
the road when suddenly
stone had fallen
he heard a loud noise."
from the sky."
REMEMBER!
NEGATIVE AND
AFFIRMATIVE QUESTIONS
We don´t use any auxiliaries to
We use did to form negatives and
form the affirmative, but we have
questions and the base form of the verb.
regular and irregular past forms!
Subject + did + not (didn´t) + verb in
Subject + verb in past tense
base form + complement
(regular or irregular) +
Did + subject + verb in base form +
complement
complement + ?
You have a list of verbs!
INTERRUPTION!
Past continuous would be the longer action and the
simple past is the shorter (interrupting action.)
PAST SIMPLE AND PAST CONTINUOUS
•What were you doing when the bus crashed?
•I was sleeping when the thief entered the house.
WHEN/WHILE
•It is common to use when or while to link the two actions.
•Use while before the continuous action:
•While I was sleeping, it started to rain.
•Use when before the continuous action or the short action
(simple past):
•When we were talking, the bus appeared.
•We were talking when the bus appeared.
•DO NOT use while before the short action (simple past):
•I was sleeping while it started to rain.
MORE ON
PAST PERFECT
We al so us e the pa st pe rfect to look back
to the past be fore the ev en ts of th e story.
"He ´d never seen a meteorite before!
Remember!
We use had + past participle to form
the past perfect
watch
me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nELxxIC0ftw
Thank Y o u
Do you have any questions?
