The Past Tense is used – as you can probably guess – to talk about the past. There are several different verb forms we can use to talk about the past. This article briefly explains them and links to fuller articles on each. Past Simple The Past Simple is used […]

The past simple verb form‎ is used to talk about events in the past; it’s often used to tell a story. He walked into the room and looked around. There was a knock on the door. He opened it and saw… I woke up. I got out of bed. I […]

The past perfect simple is used to talk about events which happened in the past before another event also in the past. It is mainly used thus: I had walked for about twenty minutes before I realized I’d left my wallet behind. It’s usually followed by the past simple‏‎. In […]

The Past Perfect Continuous (PPC) is used to talk about a continuous event in the past which happened before another event to which it was closely related. In this diagram, the wiggly line is the PPC and the cross is a closely related second event which “stops” the continuous event.