Download Past Perfect Progressive Tense

Past Tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to place an action or
situation in past time. In languages which have a past tense, it thus provides a grammatical
means of indicating that the event being referred to took place in the past. In general, the Past
Tense is used to talk about something that started and finished at a definite time in the past.
The past tense in English is used:

to talk about the past

to talk about hypotheses and wish – things that are imagined rather than true.

for politeness.
The past tense is categorized further depending on whether the action was in progress or has
been completed. The four past tenses are:
The 4 Past Tenses
Simple past tense
Examples
Uses

I went.
The simple past tense is used to

The Martians landed near the
describe a completed activity that
aqueduct.
started in the past and ended in the
past.
Past progressive

I was going.
The past progressive tense is used to
tense

He was painting the door when
describe an on-going activity in the
a bird struck the window.
past. Often, it is used to set the scene
for another action.
Past perfect tense

I had gone.
The past perfect tense is used to

Silverfinger had taken the pill
emphasize
before the team reached him.
completed before another took place.
that
an
action
was
Past perfect

I had been going.
The past perfect progressive tense is
progressive

She had been painting the door
used to show that an on-going action
before the dog scratched it.
in the past has ended.
Simple Past Tense
Definition of Simple Past Tense: it indicates an activity or situation began and ended at a
particular time in the past (English Grammar; Betty Schrampfer Azzar).
Usually simple past tense is followed by time signal or particular time to indicate that event
happen in the past, like as:
1. Yesterday
2. …..Ago
3. Last week. Last …….
4. The other day
Diagrams for the Simple Past Tenses
For example:

I played with dolls when I was younger.
The Pattern of Simple Past Tense
There are two pattern used while teaching simple past tense. They are nominal and Verbal
sentences:
Nominal Sentence
A nominal sentence is a sentence that it’s predicate is ‘not verb’ but adjective or noun.
Nominal sentence is divided into Affirmative, Negative and interrogative forms.
1. Affirmative Form
It use pattern: “Subject + Be + Complement.
’Be’ for singular person:
’I/He/She/It’ using ‘was’ and ‘You’ using ‘were’.
’Be’ for plural subject
’We/You/They’ using ‘were’
Example:
- I was a student of university years ago.
- John was hungry an hour ago
- We were very busy last night
2. Negative Form
The Pattern is: Subject + be + not + Complement.
Example:
- I was not a student of university years ago.
- John was not hungry an hour ago.
- We were not very busy last night.
3. Interrogative Form
Pattern: Be + Subject + Complement.
Example:
- Was John hungry an hour ago?
- Were You a student of university years ago?
- Were We very busy last night?
Verbal Sentence
Verbal sentence is a sentence which it’s predicate is ‘verb’. The form of verbal sentences are
as follows:
1. Affirmative Form
Pattern: Subject + Verb 2nd form
Example:
- We watched television last night.
- I studied English last week
- They went to the zoo two days ago.
# Special Note :
Regular verb V1 + d/ed
1. Verbs that end in a consonant ‘E’
Hope
hoped
Date
dated
Love
loved
2. Verbs that end in vowel and a consonant
*one-syllable verb
Stop
stopped
Rain
rained
Rob
robbed
Dream
dreamed
*two-syllable verb
Open
opening
Begin
beginning
Listen
listening
Control
controlled
3. Verbs that end in two consonant
Start
started
Fold
folded
Demand
demanded
4. Verbs that end in ‘Y’
Study
studied
Enjoy
enjoyed
Try
tried
5. Verbs that end in ‘E’
Die
died
Lie
lied
Irregular Verbs
Buy
bought
Go
went
Drink
drank
Etc.
2. Negative Form
Pattern: Subject + didn’t + Verb 1st Form
Example:
- They didn’t study last night.
- I didn't understand what he said.
3. Interrogative Form
Pattern: Did + Subject + Verb 1st form ?
Example:
A:
Did they come here last week?
B:
Yes, they did / No, they didn’t.
A:
Did you go to school yesterday?
B:
Yes, I did / No, I didn't.
Past Progressive Tense
The past progressive or continous tense is an important tense in English. We use it t say what
we were in the middle of doing at a partiular moment in the past.
The structure of the past progressive tense

Affirmative form
Pattern
: Subject + be + Verb 1st Form -ing
’Be’ for singular person:
’I/He/She/It’ using ‘was’ and ‘You’ using ‘were’.
’Be’ for plural subject
’We/You/They’ using ‘were’
Example : He was working hard

Negatif form
Pattern : Subject + be + not + Verb 1st Form –ing
Example : You were not joking

Interrogative form
Pattern : Be + Subject + Verb 1st Form –ing ?
Example : Were they laying football?
Diagram for Past Progressive Tense
For example:

I was playing for an hour.
How do we use past progressive tense?

for something that happened before and after a particular time:
The past progressive tense exresses action at a particular moment in the past. The
action started before that moment but has not finished at that moment. For example,
yesterday i watched a film on TV. The fim started at 7 pm and finished at 9 pm.
Illustration :
Examples
At 8pm, I was in the middle of watching TV
: At 8pm yesterday, I was watching TV.
+ I was working at 10pm last night.
- They were not playing football at 9am this morning.
? What were you doing when he arrived?

for something that happened before and after with another action:
Past progressive tense + Simple past tense
We often use past progressive tense with simple past tense. We use past progressive
tense to express a long action and we use the simple past tense to express a short
action that happen in the middle of the long action. We can join the two ideas with
when or while.
In the following example, we have two actions:
1. long action (watching TV), expressed with past progressive tense
2. short action (telephoned), expressed with simple past tense
we can join these two actions with when :
I was watching when you telephoned.
We use:

when + short action (simple past tense)

while + long action (past progressive tense)
There are four basic combination:
Examlples :

I was walking past the car when it exploded.

When the car exploded, I was walking past it.

The car exploded while i was walking past it.

While i was walking past the car, it exploded.
Notice that the long action and short action are relative.

Notice that the long action are relative

“Waking past the car” took a few seconds. “Exploded” took a few
milliseconds.

For beginning of a story
We often use the past progressive tense to “set the scence” in stories. We use it to
describe the backround situation at the moment when the action begin. Often, the
story startswith the past progresive tense and then moves into the simple past tense.
Here is an example :
“ James Bond was driving through town. It was raining. The wind was blowing
hard. Nobody was walking in the streets.Suddenly, Bond saw the kiler in a telephone
box....”

to show that something continued for some time:
My head was aching.
Everyone was shouting.

for something that was happening again and again:
I was practising every day, three times a day.
They were meeting secretly after school.
They were always quarrelling.

with verbs which show change or growth:
The children were growing up quickly.
Her English was improving.
My hair was going grey.
The town was changing quickly.
Past Perfect Tense
The past perrfect tense is quite an easy to uderstand and to use. This tense talks about The
“past in the past”
Diagram for Past Progressive Tense
For example:

I had played already.
The structure of the past perfect tense

Affirmative form
Pattern
: Subject + had + Verb participle (V3)
Example : I had finished my work

Negative form
Pattern : Subject + had + not + Verb participle (V3)
Example : She had not gone to school

Interrogative form
Pattern : Had + Subject + Verb participle (V3)?
Example : Had they eaten dinner?
When we speaking with the past perfect tense, we often contract the subject and
auxiliary verb examples :
I had
I’d
You had
You’d
They had
They’d
We had
We’d
She had
She’d
He had
He’d
It had
It’d
The ‘d contraction is also used for the auxiliary verb would. For examlpe, We’d can
mean:

We had or We would
But usually the main verb is in a different form, for example:

We had arrived ( past erfect tense)

We would arrive ( base/past future tense)
It is always clear from the context.
How do we use the past perfect tense?
The past perfect tense expresses action in the past before another action in the past. This is
the past in the past. For example:
Illustration : The train left at 9am. We arrived at 9.15am.
Example
: When we arrived, The train had left.
We use the past perfect tense:

for something that started in the past and continued up to a given time in the past:
When George died he and Anne had been married for nearly fifty years.
We often use a clause with since to show when something started in the past:
They had been staying with us since the previous week.
I was sorry when the factory closed. I had worked there since I left school.
I had been watching that programme every week since it started, but I missed the last
episode.

when we are reporting our experience and including up to the (then) present:
My eighteenth birthday was the worst day I had ever had.
I was pleased to meet George. I hadn’t met him before, even though I had met his wife
several times.

for something that happened in the past but is important at the time of reporting:
I couldn’t get into the house. I had lost my keys.
Teresa wasn’t at home. She had gone shopping.
We use the past perfect to talk about the past in conditions, hypotheses and wishes:
I would have helped him if he had asked.
It was very dangerous. What if you had got lost?
I wish I hadn’t spent so much money last month.
Past Perfect Progressive Tense
The Past Perfect Progressive Tense is like the past perfect tense, but it expresses longer
actions in the past before another action in the past. For example :
Iustration : Ram started waitingg at 9am. I arrived at 11am.
Example : When i arrived, Ram had been waiting for two hours.
Diagram of past perfect progressive tense
For example:

I had been playing since I was ten.
The structure of the past progressive tense

Affirmative form
Pattern
: Subject + had + been + Verb 1st Form -ing
Example : I had been finishing the work

Negatif form
Pattern : Subject + be + not + been + Verb 1st Form –ing
Example : I had not been finishing the work

Interrogative form
Pattern : Had + Subject + been + Verb 1st Form –ing ?
Example : Had i been finishing the work?
We use the past perfect continuous to show that something had been continuing up to a
time in the past or was important at that time in the past:

Everything was wet. It had been raining for hours.
He was a wonderful guitarist. He had been playing ever since he was a teenager.

The past perfect is used in the same way as the present perfect, but it refers to a time
in the past, not the present.
We normally use the past perfect continuous for this:
She didn’t want to move. She had been living in Liverpool all her life.
Everything was wet. It had been raining for hours.

for something we had done several times up to a point in the past and continued to
do after that point:
He was a wonderful guitarist. He had been playing ever since he was a teenager.
He had written three books and he was working on another one.
I had been watching the programme every week, but I missed the last episode.