Hi, in today’s lesson, you will learn about the narrative tenses in English.
We use narrative tenses to talk about the past.
We can use them to tell a story or to describe past events,
including personal anecdotes.
The four narrative tenses are the past simple, past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous.
Let’s see an example of a story using these 4 tenses. The sun was shining, here we are using the past continuous to set the scene. I got in
my car. Here we use the past simple for a completed action in the past. It had been
raining, here we are using the past perfect continuous to describe something that has
been happening before we got in the car over a longer period of time. and finally, all
my washing had got wet is used to describe an action that was completed before I got
in the car.
In exams, if you are asked to write a story it important that you demonstrate that you
can use all of these tenses correctly. So, let’s look at them one by one, so you are
clear on which tense to use.
So firstly, the Past simple
We can use the past simple for actions that started and finished in the past, completed
actions, for example, a series of events in someone’s life.
Andrew Murray grew up in Dunblane and began playing tennis at age 3. In 2004, he became
the world's No. 1 junior after winning the U.S. Open junior title
The past simple is often used in stories and dialogue, too.
- Sam whispered,
- “Did you hear the argument last night?”
- Fred didn’t answer.
- “Your brother went out last night. He didn’t come back.
Moving on to the Past continuous
We use the past continuous for background information and to describe a scene or situation
that continued for some time or an action in progress in the past.
At 8pm, Lee was still sleeping.
This action continued for some time, it is setting the scene.
Or
The dog was barking loudly.
Again, this action continued for some time and gives you background information about
what is happening.
Let’s look at the form
So it is the subject plus was/were + ing form of the verb.
For example, I was working/you were working / he/she/it was working /we and they were
working
In the Negative it becomes wasn’t/weren’t + ing form of the verb
So now let’s look at how these tenses work together. We often use the past simple and
past continuous together when one action interrupts another.
For instance
I was walking on the pavement when I saw a cat in a tree.”
Imagine a timeline, so this is the past and we have “I was walking” here which is
a longer action in the past which was interrupted by the short completed action “I saw”
here represented by the cross.
We also often use the Past simple and past perfect together in a sentence to describe
an action that happened before another past action.
When Paul arrived, I had cooked a meal.
Again thinking of our timeline, ask yourself which action happened first and that goes
in the past perfect. So, I cooked the meal and then Paul arrived. So we use "had cooked"
and "arrived." The past perfect for the earlier action and the past simple the following action.
The Form is
I Had + past participle of the verb
Had is the Same for all subjects, so you had, he/she/it had, we had, they had.
In spoken English we usually use the short form of had= I’d, you’d he’d she’d
it’d and they’d
In the Negative, we say hadn’t plus the past participle and again it is the same for
all subjects.
Finally, let’s look at the Past perfect continuous
We use this tense to describe an action that started in the past and continued up until
another time in the past. So it is an action that takes place over a period of time.
So, let’s think back to my original example of narrative tenses. It had been raining.....
It started raining in the past up until I got in the car. Let's look at the timeline.
It is like the past perfect tense but is happening over a period of time. It happens before and
over a period of time, up until I got in my car.
Let’s look at the form.
So you have the subject plus had been + the verb’s present participle (root + -ing).
And it is the same for all subjects.
So, I have a challenge for you. Write a sentence using a combination of narrative tenses down
below in the comment section and I promise to give you feedback.
So that’s it for today, I hope you feel more confident using past narrative tenses
now. Remember to like this video if you found it useful, share it with your friends and
colleagues learning English and remember to subscribe to my channel and turn the notifications
on so as not to miss out on any new English language videos.
Bye for now and see you very soon.
narrative tenses in English