PAST CONTINUOUS AND PAST PERFECT
A. Pre-reading task. Choose the best variant for each sentence – Past Continuous or Past Perfect. What is the difference between them?
1) Just as I got/was getting into the bath all the lights had gone/went off.
2) We arrived/had arrived at work in the morning and found that somebody had broken into/was breakingthe office during the night.
3) The waiter took/had taken my plate away before I had finished/finishedit.
4) Yesterday Kevin got/was gettinga phone call from Sally. He was very surprised because he had sent/was sending her lots of emails, but she had never replied/never replied to them.
5) A friendly American couple had started/started chatting to Donovan as he had checked/was checkingin at the hotel reception.
6) My boss came/was coming into the office just as I had shown/was showing everyone my holiday photos.
7) As Geoff was introduced to Mrs Snape, he had realized/realized that he was meeting/had met her before.
8) At the conference, scientists were reporting/reported that they had found/found a cure for malaria.
9) The teacher was guessing/guessed that some of the children had cheated/cheated in the exam.
10) Thomas had gone/went home early because he was feeling/felt ill.
B. Read the theory material about the Past tenses .
There are 16 tense-aspect forms of the English verb: four Present tense forms: (takes; is taking; has taken; has been taking); four Past tense forms: (took; was taking; had taken; had been taking); four Future tense forms: (will take; will be taking; will have taken; will have been taking) and four Future-In-The-Past tense forms: (would take; would be taking; would have taken; would have been taking). The Past Continuous, often named Past Progressive, describes actions in progress at the time that the main events happen: When we got home, everyone was waiting to greet us. The Past continuous is made by a form of the auxiliary verb ‘be’ in the Past tense – ‘was/were’ and a Present Participle (I) of the main verb (V-ing).
The Past Continuous is used to talk about:
1 Background past action: As I was getting into the bath the lights went off.
2 Temporary past action: I was living in Sochi at the time of the Olympics.
3 Surprisingly often repeated action: When the builders were here I was making them cups of tea all the time.
4 Planned (expected, wished) action in the past that we didn’t do: I was thinking of going to London next weekend, but I ran out of cash.
The Past Perfect links a point in the past with a time further in the past. It describes actions that happened ‘before the past’: She had been ill for some time before she died. The Past Perfect is made by a form of the auxiliary verb ‘had’ for all persons and a Past Participle (II) of the main verb (V3). Common phrases used with the Past Perfect are – ever, for, before, after, by 8 o’clock, by the time, when: When Mike had smoked all his cigarettes he borrowed one from Al. Sometimes a sentence in the Past Perfect has two verbs – ‘had had’, one of them is auxiliary, another is meaningful: Mary had had headaches for years.
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The Past Perfect is used to talk about:
1 ‘Prehistoric’ past: When I got home, the cat had escaped.
2 Planned actions in the past: She had hoped that 10$ would last all week.
3 Number of times in the past: It was the first time I had travelled abroad.
4 Reporting in the past: Steve said his sister had had a baby.
Note that if the order of events is clear, we can use either the Past Perfect or the Past Simple: When I finished the phone talk, I found that the bath had overflowed/overflowed. The law of economy of effort says that the Past Perfect is not always necessary with prepositions ‘before, after’ when the order is obvious: I remembered to lock up before I went to bed. It is very interesting to distinguish between Past tenses in the narrative: When John arrived, they had dinner (first John arrived, then they had dinner); When John arrived, they were having dinner (when John arrived, they were in the middle of dinner); When John arrived, they had had dinner (they had dinner before John arrived).
C. Answer the questions:
1) How many tense-aspect forms are there in English? Illustrate past forms.
2) How the Past continuous is also named? How is it formed? Give an example.
3) Give examples of background, repeated and temporary Past Continuous.
4) The Past Perfect is the past of the past, isn’t it? How do we form it?
5) Give common phrases used with the Past Perfect. Illustrate them.
6) Is it correct when there are two verbs ‘had’ in a Past Perfect sentence?
7) In what cases do we use the Past Perfect? Give examples.
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8) If the order of events in the past is clear – should we use the Past Perfect?
9) What law explains that the Past Perfect is not always necessary?
10) Is it a boring task to distinguish between Past tenses in a narrative?
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