What are the narrative tenses?

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.

Example:

"Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 after Germany had attacked Poland two days earlier."

Past Simple

• We use the Simple Past for completed actions in the past. These tell the main events of the story in the order that they happened.

• Example: We left on a rainy day.

Past Continuous

• We use the Past Continuous for a longer action that was in progress when another (shorter) action happened.

• We also use the Past Continuous for background information that is not part of the main story.

• Example: The sun was shining and it was really hot by midday.

Past perfect

• We usually use the Past Perfect Simple for an action that was completed before another action in the past.

• Example: It had rained off and on for ten days.

Narration

"Last night, I went to a hospital. The weather was awful, actually it was raining really hard. I had fallen from a tree and my arm was broken".

Exercises

Complete the sentences using the correct narrative tense

Activity

Story Sequence Picture. Narrate a story using Pixton or other similar app.