Do you know how to use the different past tenses in English? In today’s blog post, Kate explains how to use the past tenses. You can also watch her video lesson, and download worksheets on the different past tenses to test your understanding of the grammar.
“The past cannot be changed, forgotten, edited or erased; it can only be accepted.” – Anonymous
In the past we have:
- – the Past Simple
- – the Past Continuous
- – the Past Perfect
You’ll know how and when to use them and be able to choose correctly between them at the end of this blog.
Recently, I covered this topic in my Ask Us Anything Friday live on our YouTube channel! You can find that video below. I go live every Friday to answer your English language questions on grammar, pronunciation, idioms, vocabulary and more, so if you have a question, make sure to submit it by leaving a comment below, or send us an email!
You can also check out my blog post on the Present Tenses and right here.
So let’s take a closer look at the Past Tenses.
The Past Simple
The structure is:
Positive regular verb sentence: subject + add ~ed to base form of verb
(Irregular Past Simple verbs just have to be learnt off by heart.)
Negative sentence: subject + didn’t + base form of verb
Question: Did + subject + base form of the verb
How do we use the Past Simple?
The main use of the Past Simple is for finished and completed actions at a specific point in the past.
We know when the action happened.
For example:
“He cleaned his flat yesterday.”
“I moved to Paris in 2009.”
“She was born in July.”
We often use time words such as:
Yesterday, last night, last week, last month, last year, in 2020, …ago.
We always know WHEN the action happened in the past.
This is important to remember as a key difference between the Past Simple & the Present Perfect is the Past Simple was at a specific time in the past.
Let’s compare:
- – He lived in Italy years ago. (He no longer lives in Italy.)
- – He has lived in Italy for many years. (He is still living in Italy.)
- – She went to the shops for groceries yesterday. (She is back home and the groceries are in the fridge. She has food to eat.)
- – She has gone to the shops for groceries. (She’s at the shops now and is not here.)
Intrepid English Members can download their Past Simple worksheet using the button below (Just click on the ‘materials’ tab).
The Past Continuous
Structure:
Positive sentence: subject + was/were + verb-ing
Negative sentence: subject + wasn’t/weren’t + verb-ing
Question: Was/were + subject + verb-ing
How do we use the Past Continuous?
It’s main use is to describe an action in progress around a point in the past.
It is often the longer action that was in progress when a past simple action interrupted it:
- – I was talking to Nicola when Sarah called.
- – He was cooking dinner when his wife came home.
We can also have two continuous actions happening at the same time in the past:
- – I was talking to Nicola while she was doing the washing up.
- – He was cooking dinner while his children were playing in the garden.
Intrepid English Members can download their Past Continuous worksheet using the button below (Just click on the ‘materials’ tab).
Finally we have the Past Perfect Simple and the Past Perfect Continuous.
The Past Perfect Simple
Structure:
Positive sentence: subject + had + past participle
Negative sentence: subject + hadn’t + past participle
Question: Had + subject + past participle
When do we use the Past Perfect Simple?
This is the tense I call the two steps back tense because it is the action that happened before the Past Simple.
For example:
- – The film had started when we arrived
- – The bus had left before we got to the stop
- – I realised when I arrived home that I had left my house keys at the office.
We often use it with time expressions such as before, by the time, when.
Intrepid English Members can download their Past Perfect worksheet using the button below (Just click on the ‘materials’ tab).
There is also the Continuous aspect of this tense just as we had with the Present Perfect.
The Past Perfect Continuous
Structure:
Positive sentence: subject + had + been + verb-ing
Negative sentence: subject + hadn’t + been + verb-ing
Question: Had + subject + been + verb-ing
When do we use the Past Perfect Continuous?
We use it to show that an action which started in the past continued up to another point in the past. For example:
- – She had been living in Italy for three years when she lost her job.
- – I had been waiting for ten minutes before the bus came.
- – By the time Steve arrived I had been working for nearly eight hours!
With the past perfect continuous we use time expressions such as for five hours, for 2 weeks, for a long time, by the time.
We can also use it to talk about the cause of something in the past.
- – Susan was sweating because she had been running.
- – Henry was late because he had been studying.
Remember the continuous aspects cannot be used with stative verbs (believe, know, think, love, prefer, hate, feel, see, remember, understand.)
Intrepid English Members can download their Past Perfect Continuous worksheet using the button below (Just click on the ‘materials’ tab).
Don’t forget you can access all downloads and study verb tenses in more detail with the Fast Grammar course in the Academy.