Topic 3

Topic 3                                     The Past Tenses                                    

There are 4 tenses in the Past.  Here are the 3 tenses you have learnt in Gear 1 and 2 and to be reviewed to show you when to use each tense properly.

a)  The Simple Past Tense

b)  The Past Continuous Tense

c)  The Past Perfect Tense

d)  The Past Perfect Continuous Tense

a)   The Simple Past Tense

     To show …………………………. In the past

      a Fact

      a Habitual action

   Past time expressions:

      just now

      this morning

      yesterday / yesterday morning / yesterday afternoon                                                 

      last night / last week / last month / last year / last Tuesday / last August                         

      a few seconds / minutes / hours / days / weeks / months / years ago

            

     The Verb Patterns (Compare with the Simple Present Tense)

     i)  Verb-to-be

          was / were  

         

          I                                                        We

          He                                                 You / You           were 

          She          was                                     They      

          It

Remember the rule         am / is ---------à was

                                       are  ----------à were

       ii)  Ordinary Verbs

         [S]  F3

           

Whatever the subject, we always use F3 in the Ordinary verbs like ‘jumped / played / prayed / helped’ and so on with the exception of ‘was / were’

     [Nora] told me how hard she tried to slim down last year.  But [she] failed.

     [She] was very disappointed.

     [A dog] chased me yesterday.  [I] was very frightened.

     [Biki and his friends] went fishing yesterday.  [They] caught (many fish).

     [They] were very excited and happy.

     [My grandparents] had a quarrel last Thursday. 

     [They] were very angry with each other.

b)  The Past Continuous Tense (Compare with the Present Continuous Tense)                                                                                  

      We use the Past Continuous Tense to show a continuous action in the

      Past.  It can be used with or without a past time expression.                 8                                                                                                             

      The Verb Pattern:      

         Was / were F2

         I                                                      We

        He                                                 You / You                   were F2

        She              was F2                           They

        It

     [The computer technician] was here yesterday.

      [He] was repairing the computer for us the whole morning.

     [Timothy] was at the gymnastic centre last Friday.

      [He] was doing some exercise there.

c)  The Past Perfect Tense  (Compare with the Present Perfect Tense)

      We use the Past Perfect Tense to show an action which took place

      before another action happened in the past.  It has nothing to do with the 

      situation now.  This tense usually goes with the Conjunctions like 

      ‘before / after / when / as’ and the Simple Past Tense (F3)

      The Verb Pattern: 

       i)  Verb-to-be

            [S]   had been

      ii)   Ordinary Verbs

            [S]   had F4

      Whatever the subject [S], the verb form remains the same.

      [We] went to visit Jiachia after [she] had been absent from school for a week.

      [She] had been sick for some time before her mother brought her to have a

      medical check-up.

      [She] was in great discomfort.

      [She] took (some medicine).

      [She] felt much better after [she] had taken some medicine.

      [She] was sleeping the whole day long.

      [Jiachia’s mother] had taken some nap before [she] cooked some porridge with  

      vegetables for her.          

d)  The Past Perfect Continuous Tense

     We use the tense to show a continuous action from a time in the past to another

     time in the past.   It is a description of an action continuous from a time to another

     time in the past.  It is different from a past continuous tense which is the stretch of

     time period at a certain time in the past.

          Burusamy laughed so much at the party yesterday.

          He was laughing hilariously when I arrived.

          He had laughed so much so that his stomach ached.

          He had been laughing from the moment that Meena’s started telling the story.