Retour au programme
Controlling past tenses is crucial for storytelling and narrative writing.
🔹 Past Simple (I worked) :
• Completed actions at a specific time in the past
• Signal words : yesterday, last week, in 2020, ago, when
Ex : She finished school in 2019.
🔹 Past Continuous (I was working) :
• Action in progress at a specific moment in the past
• Background action interrupted by another
• Signal words : while, when, at that moment, at 8pm last night
Ex : I was studying when the phone rang.
🔹 Past Perfect (I had worked) :
• Action completed BEFORE another past action (the 'earlier past')
• Signal words : before, after, by the time, when, already, never
Ex : When I arrived, the lesson had already started.
🔹 Combining tenses in a narrative :
• Past perfect → earlier background
• Past continuous → ongoing background
• Past simple → main actions
Ex : The streets were quiet. Most people had gone to bed. Suddenly, a loud noise broke the silence.
📝 Fill in the correct past tense :
1. By the time we arrived, the show _______ (start). → had already started
2. She _______ (read) when the lights went out. → was reading
3. He _______ (never / visit) Ziguinchor before that trip. → had never visited
4. They _______ (finish) the project before the deadline. → had finished
5. What _______ you _______ (do) at 9pm yesterday? → were you doing
📝 Write a short narrative (5-6 sentences) using all three past tenses :
Model : 'Last Saturday, Moussa decided to visit his grandmother. He had not seen her for three months. When he arrived at her house, she was sitting in the courtyard, shelling groundnuts. She smiled when she saw him — she had already prepared his favourite dish. They spent the whole afternoon talking and laughing.'
What is the difference between past simple and past continuous?
Correction
Past simple describes completed actions ('She left at 9am'). Past continuous describes an action in progress at a specific past moment ('She was leaving when I called'). They often combine: the continuous gives the background, the simple gives the interruption.
Why do we use the past perfect in: 'She cried because she had failed the exam'?
Correction
The past perfect (had failed) shows that the failure happened BEFORE the crying. It establishes the sequence of events clearly: first she failed, then she cried.
Combine using 'when': 'I arrived. The teacher had explained everything.'
Correction
When I arrived, the teacher had already explained everything.
Identify and correct the error: 'While I studied, my brother was calling me.'
Correction
The continuous should be the background action and the simple the interruption. Correct: 'While I was studying, my brother called me.'
Write three sentences using the past perfect to explain why something happened.
Correction
1. He was tired because he had slept only three hours. 2. She failed the test because she had not revised. 3. The streets were empty because everyone had gone home.