Children´s book – TORTOISE SHELL (J. Ashworth, J.

Clark)
Marie Prokopová (group 2), Eva Straková (group 1)
There are four tenses in this book – present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continues
and there are also wishes.
1. PAST SIMPLE
– This tense is used for the narrative of the whole story, because it takes place in the
past. In that book it is used for finished actions and to describe the events
in the story.
– Examples:
There was a tortoise.
He was a very ordinary tortoise.
He saw a scrapyard.
Then he had an idea.
“Maybe I could have an Artur-plated shell like an armadillo,” he thought. (a direct
speech)
So, he set to work.
Soon he had a bright new shiny metal shell.
Tortoise walked along the road in his shiny metal shell.
Unfortunately, it started to rain.
The shell began to rust.
Tortoise walked slower and slower and slower.
Finally, he couldn´t move at all.

2. PAST CONTINUOUS
– This tense is used there for a continuing unfinished action interrupted by a sudden
past action.
– There is only one sentence with this tense in the book.
– Example:
One day tortoise was walking along the road when he saw a scrapyard.

3. PRESENT SIMPLE
– In this story, it is used with the direct speech where is often description of some
thing’s properties.
– Examples:
“This shell´s no good.”
“It´s too heavy.”
“It´s rusty.”
 “It´s too light.”
“It´s too dangerous.”
“It´s too soft.”
“It´s torn.”
“It´s too bouncy.”
“Maybe my shell is the best shell after all.”
– There is one sentence with the purpose to contact the reader and it is also commonly
used phrase.
– Example:
You know a head, four legs, a tail and a hard shell.

4. PRESENT CONTINUOUS
– It is used there because it is action happening at the moment of speaking, and not
finished. There is only one sentence in the whole story.
– Example:
“I´m boring.”

5. WISHES
– There are wishes about the present in this book. When we use “wish” to make a wish
about the present, we use the unreal past simple, as in an unreal conditional
sentence.
– Examples:
“I wish I had an Artur-plated shell.”
Tortoise wished he wasn´t a tortoise at all.