The document provides information about various past tenses in English. It warns against mixing past and present tenses or using the present simple and present perfect together. It then defines and provides examples of the past simple (for completed or habitual past actions), past continuous (for describing past actions that were ongoing at a specific time), past perfect (for actions that occurred before something else in the past), and past perfect continuous (for progressive actions that started in the past and continued up until another past time).

1. Narrative
Tenses
Some useful information
about the tenses

2. WARNING!
Do not mix past and present tenses and also
avoid using the present simple and the
present perfect at the same time. All of
these rare combinations might confuse the
reader or listener about when the things
really happened.

3. PAST SIMPLE
 We mainly use the
past simple to
express a
completed action
at a specific time in
the past.
 Another possibility
of usage is to
express past habits.
Here some examples for
each case:
1. Today morning I woke
up at 10am, I had a
shower and did some
homework.
2. I went to school in
Germany and then I
came to Colombia to
study my BA

4. PAST CONTINUOUS
USE
 The past continuous refers
to the activity and
duration. It describes
actions in the past taking
place at a specific
moment and that endured.
 We also use it to express
the idea of an interrupted
action in the past.
 A temporary situation
Examples
1. When I saw her, she
was driving a
Mercedes
2. My mom was cooking
dinner when the
doorbell rang.
3. He was standing on
the corner waiting for
a bus

5.  Examples:
1. Today morning I
woke up at 10am, I
had not slept well
because there had
been a party at my
neighbour’s house.
PAST PERFECT
The past perfect is used
to show that an action or
situation happened
before the events in the
narrative described in
the simple past.
It means, we can use it
to talk about the
activities taht happened
before a completed
action.

6. PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS
 We use this tense to
show that something
started in the past
and continued up
until another time in
the past. Or also, to
talk about a
progressive action in
the past interrupted
by another one.
1. They had been
talking for over an
hour before I
arrived.
2. She had been
working at that
company for
three years when
it went out of
business