Lesson 3: Narrative Tenses
This lesson will help you master narrative tenses in English so you can tell stories in a more engaging and compelling way.
About this lesson
In this lesson, we dive into the world of narrative tenses in English: Past Simple, Past Continuous, Past Perfect, and Past Perfect Continuous. You'll learn when to use each one to build chronologically accurate and meaningful stories. We'll put them into practice through a variety of exercises and real-life examples.
40 minutes
What you'll learn
- Correctly identify and use the Past Simple for main actions in the past.
- Distinguish between the Past Simple and Past Continuous when describing simultaneous or interrupted actions.
- Apply the Past Perfect for events that occurred before another past event.
- Describe ongoing actions that preceded a specific moment in the past using the Past Perfect Continuous.
- Confidently write short narratives using a range of narrative tenses.
Lesson vocabulary
- happen What happened last night?
- discover They discovered an old map.
- explore We explored the forest.
- realize She realized her error.
- continue He continued working despite the rain.
- suddenly Suddenly, the door opened.
- meanwhile He was reading; meanwhile, she was cooking.
- eventually Eventually, we found a solution.
- whisper She whispered a secret to him.
- astonished I was astonished by the news.
- adventure They went on an exciting adventure.
- breeze A cool breeze swept through the room.
- mysterious He received a mysterious letter.
- ancient They visited an ancient temple.
- wander He wandered aimlessly through the streets.