Return of the Past Tenses!

• ​All the past tenses:

  • ​Simple

  • ​Continuous

  • ​Perfect

  • ​Perfect Continuous

• ​And at the end, we'll do a quiz to see how well we've understood the subject.

• ​The simple past tense is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now.

• ​You can use any point of time, as long as it's in the past (last year, one month ago, a few seconds ago, etc.)

• ​The formula's reallly simple

  • ​Subject + Verb 2 (Past Tense)

    • ​He cooked dinner.

  • ​Subject + DId + Verb 1 (Present Tense)

    • ​He did cook dinner.

• ​Affirmative

  • They built their house a few years ago.

• Interrogative​

  • ​Did she like the pizza?

• ​Negative

  • ​I didn't play soccer because of the rain.

• ​Imperative/Exclamatory

  • ​He made an incredible pass!

• ​We use the past continuous tense to talk about: continuing actions that were happening at some point in the past.

  • ​Ex: I was watching a movie.

• ​Here's the formula:

  • ​Subject + Was/Were + Present Participle (Verb-ing)

• ​Affirmative:

  • ​The sun was shining so brightly this morning.

• ​Interrogative:

  • ​Were you feeding the stray cats?

• ​Negative:

  • ​The remote was not working.

• ​Imperative/Exclamatory:

  • ​The giant hamsters were chasing me!

• ​The past perfect tense is used to make it clear that one event happened before another event in the past.

  • He had arrived before we did.

• ​The kind of complex formula:

  • ​Subject + Had + Past Participle (Verb 3)

• ​Affirmative

  • ​Last season, they had won six games in a row.

• ​Negative

  • ​He had not finished his test when the bell rang.

• ​Interrogative

  • ​Had he helped any other cat before today?

• ​Imperative/Exclamatory

  • ​You had the highest score until just now!

• ​The past perfect continuous shows that an action that started in the past continued up until another time in the past.

  • ​They had been starving since last night, though they're pretty full now.

• ​And the formula is:

  • ​Subject + Had + Been + Present Participle (Verb-ing)

• Affirmative:

  • ​We had been living here for more than a decade when we decided to move.

• ​Interrogative:

  • ​Had he been practicing properly?

• ​Negative:

  • ​They had not been running, they were asleep.

• ​Exclamatory/Imperative:

  • ​The building had been burning for hours!

Any questions?

Or are you ready for the quiz?​

Was it too easy or too hard?​