You want to learn the English narrative tenses of the past, but the fact that there are four of them can seem a little scary at first. Have you wondered how they all fit together and how to use them accurately, you’re in the right place. This post will teach you how to the following:
- What the Narrative Tenses are
- How to Form the Narrative Tenses
- What the Simple and Continuous Narrative Tenses Mean
- (most importantly) How to Use the Narrative Tenses
I’m a native speaking English teacher living in Poland, and here is one subject my students are constantly asking me about. You see, in Poland, they only have three total tenses – one for each time zone (the present, past, and future) whereas many other languages have more verb tenses. So what do the English past tenses really do besides express the action in a past context?
In my video English lesson, I explain exactly what the difference is between each past verb tense, and how we use them to communicate about the past. You can watch the video English lesson below, or scroll past it to read through the transcript in the post below.
What are the 4 Narrative Tenses
The term narrative, as defined in the Cambridge Dictionary, means a story or a description of a series of events. In short, the narrative tenses are the main past tenses in English:
- The Past Simple
- The Past Perfect Simple
- The Past Continuous
- The Past Perfect Continuous
Together, these four verb tenses help you to relate a series of events or tell a story. The word relate is the key here because what the narrative tenses really do is show how the actions relate to one another in time.
Yet before we dive into these relationships, let’s introduce each tense and how to form them.
How to form the 4 Narrative Tenses in English
In order to use English past tenses, you must first know how to identify and form them properly.
In the below graphic, you will see an infographic showing you how to form all four of the narrative tenses.
As you can see from the puzzle graphic, the verb tenses have natural connections.
The Past Simple is its own verb form and there are two types of verbs to learn about to form this tense properly: Regular Verbs and Irregular Verbs. The Past Perfect Simple takes the past of the auxiliary verb Have plus the past participle (in either regular verb or irregular verb form).
You form the Past Continuous with the past of the auxiliary verb Be (was or were) plus the present participle.
The Past Perfect Continuous is a combination of the Past Perfect Simple and the Past Continuous tenses. You start with the past auxiliary Had plus the auxiliary Be in past participle form plus the main verb in present participle form.
How to use the 4 Narrative tenses in English
The next step is to understand the difference between the four English narrative tenses. Each aspect communicates something differently through each tense. The first level of differentiation is between the Simple Tenses and the Continuous Tenses.
The Simple Narrative Tenses: Past Simple and Past Perfect Simple
A verb in any simple tense is expressed in a finished context. In the past tenses, this is most understandable, as we can clearly understand that an action in the past was finished.
The Past Simple verb tense basically means “Finished” plus “When”.
If we make any sentence in the past, we know the action(s) are finished and we know the time or time context.
- I found some money yesterday. [Finished + When]
- While I was walking home from school, I saw some money on the ground. [Finished + Time Context]
The Past Simple vs. The Past Perfect Simple
Verbs in the perfect are relational to other verbs at different times. More specifically, a perfect verb occurred before the time or action of context.
So, the Past Perfect Simple means “Finished” plus “Before When.”
Let’s observe an example.
Think about that example for a second. If you had watched a horror film last night before you went to bed, would that have had any effect on your ability to sleep? The fact that you’d watched a horror film last night would have no real effect unless it was paired with another related action – the action that it is influencing. So, there are a few things at play in the past perfect tense.
- The order of the finished actions is differentiated by the verb being in the past perfect tense, meaning the perfect tense tells the listener “I was the first of these two actions” – Sequence.
- The verb in the perfect tense suggests it has some effect on the simple action – Cause & Effect.
There are other aspects to the Past Perfect Simple tense, but the lesson taught here is the most important to understand.
The Continuous Narrative Tenses: Past Continuous & Past Perfect Continuous
If a simple verb is finished, then a continuous verb is unfinished. However, we should differentiate that there are two ways to think about an unfinished verb.
Your first understanding of the continuous tense is that it’s used for verbs that take longer to complete. So, for longer actions, if it is unfinished at a specific time in the past, it is past continuous.
On the other hand, shorter actions can also be finished. Think about this scenario for a second.
Last night, I called you and you didn’t answer your phone. Later, I called you again, and you still didn’t answer. So, I kept on calling you, and each time you didn’t answer.
The next day, when I see you, I’ll say “Hey, I was calling you last night, but you never answered. What happened?”
That is the repetition aspect of the past continuous verb tense.
The Past Continuous vs the Past Perfect Continuous
We can think about a verb in the Past Perfect Continuous tense in a couple of ways:
1. A verb in the Perfect Continuous tense communicates, suggests, or emphasizes the duration of time – For how long.
Ex: We had been talking on the phone all morning. [Unfinished +Duration]
2. Additionally, if through the time conjunction/preposition, we define the stopping point of the past continuous action, we express the action in the Past Perfect Continuous tense – Continued until.
Ex: We had been talking on the phone until my battery ran out. [Unfinished + until the defined end of the action]
Learn English Past Tenses with a journaling Activity
Having this understanding of the past English verb tenses, or narrative tenses as we like to call them, is the first step in your ability to communicate better about the past. You will want to do some exercises and practice.
You can start with some simple practice exercises on yourself, and about your own work or school schedule. For example:
Learn English past tenses the right way by getting lots of practice. If you can make a daily habit of this kind of English journal activity, your grammatical accuracy will become natural (like a native
).
Learn English Past Tenses with a free study Guide
Why not make it easy to learn English past tenses by downloading a free study guide for some additional examples on how the narrative tenses work? I (try to) accompany all my video English lessons with a free study guide. If you want to have the video lesson along with the easily downloadable study guide delivered to your email please sign up to my newsletter.
Related Video Lessons
In order to use the Past Simple and Past Perfect Simple tenses, you will need to know the Regular and Irregular Verbs. You can find learn the most common verbs here:
- The Easiest Way to Learn Irregular Verbs
- Don’t Make these Fixable Pronunciation mistakes with Regular Verbs
This post helps you learn all four of the past narrative tenses, but what about the Present Tenses?
You can get a post explaining how these tenses work here:
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