Narrative Tenses

Simple Past: Main events in the story, consecutive action

Past Continuous (was/were + verb + ing): Longer continuous past action in
progress when another action happened or at a specific past time

Past Perfect (had + past participle): Action finished before another past
action/past time

Past Perfect Continuous (had + been + verb + ing): Action that started
before another past action/past time and continued up to that past action/past
time

We arrived at the airport and checked in.

I graduated in 2010. In 2009, I was studying in university.
We were having dinner when the plane hit some turbulence.
At nine o’clock most people on the plane were reading or were trying to sleep.
When we arrived at the airport, we suddenly realized that we had left one of the
suitcases in the taxi.
She had eaten lunch before she got on the bus.
She had been riding the bus for ten minutes when she started to feel sick.
We’d been flying for about two hours when the captain told us to fasten our
seatbelts because we were flying into some very bad weather.
Past perfect or Past perfect continuous?
 Past perfect emphasize the completion of an action, past perfect
continuous emphasizes the continuation of an action

The woman was crying because she’d been watching a very sad movie.
The woman didn’t want to watch the movie because she’d already seen it.
Past perfect (1) + simple past (2)
The pilot was very experienced and had flown this route many times before.
Past perfect continuous (1) + for (amount of time) + simple past (2)/past
continuous (2)
When the pilot made the announcement, the plane had been flying for about
three hours.
Tell us a story!
1. Tell me about your last vacation. How had you felt about the vacation
before your departure? Did anything unexpected happen? What were you
doing when this happened?

2. What did you do for you last birthday? Did you eat anything special? Did
you receive any special gifts? How had you been feeling before the
birthday?

3. Who was your first crush? Did you tell them how you felt? What were you
doing when you first saw them?

4. What was the last really difficult thing you had to do? Why was it difficult?
How had you been feeling before you did it?

5. What did you eat for your last meal? Who prepared it? Who did you eat it
with?

6. Who did you meet last week? What did you do together?

7. Tell me about what you did for the last 24 hours.

8. When was the last time you were really excited about something?

9. Tell me about where you lived as a child. Had the house been built before
you moved there? Who had been living there before your family moved
there?