PAST TENSES 3ºD

past tenses

Ana Casimiro Ramón English 3ºD Use Licence: Creative Commons

Let's practice!

past perfect

past continuous

past simple

Structure: + had +past participle - hadn't +PP ? Had + subject + PP?

USE:

• We use it when one action happened before another past action

USE:

• A longer action was interrupted (usually by a shorter action in the past simple).
• When two continuous actions are happening at the same time

Structure: + was/ were +ing - wasn't/ weren't +ing ? Was /Were + subject+ing? EX: "Were you reading the newspaper when I called you?" "I was eating while my mum was talking with my aunt" KEYWORDS: WHILE

USE:

• To talk about past action when we specify the time.

Structure: + d / ed - 2º column - didn't + infinitive ? Did + subject + infinitive? EX: "We didn't go to the cinema yesterday" "We got married 20 yeras ago" KEYWORDS: yesterday, last+..., ago, in + date in the past, when

EX: "I had already left when my mum arrived"

KEYWORDS: ALREADY

past perfect continuous

Structure: + had been +ing - hadn't been +ing ? Had +subject+been +ing? KEYWORDS: For. The whole + TIME EXPRESSION

USE:

• We use it to show that an action which started in the past continued up to another point in the past.
• When action in the past happened before another and had a result.

EX: "I had been waiting for 2 hours when the train arrived" "We were exhausted because we had been running the whole morning"