The Past Times
Senior 4 · English
The Past Times
Lesson 3 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Every story about the past, from a grandmother's memory to a history essay, is built from three tenses. The past simple moves the story forward. The past continuous paints the background. The past perfect steps back to something that had already happened. Using all three, and choosing between them correctly, is what turns a list of events into a story. In the second part of the lesson you learn the three ways to pronounce the -ed ending that so many past verbs share.
An imagined oral-history recording, written by Ganzaa, of the kind you collected in Lesson 1. The past simple is in bold, the past continuous is underlined, and the past perfect is in italics.
I remember the evening my father brought home our first radio. It was 1978 and I was eleven. My brothers and I had spent the whole afternoon in the fields, and we were washing our feet behind the house when we heard a strange voice inside. My father was sitting on the bench with a small black box on his knees. He had walked all the way to the market in town that morning, and he had sold two goats to pay for it. Nobody in our village had ever owned one. That night half the neighbours came to listen. While the news was playing, my grandmother kept looking behind the box to see where the man was hiding. We laughed so much that we missed the end of the news.
| Tense | Form | Use in a story | Example from the text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past simple | verb + -ed, or the irregular past form | finished actions, one after another: the events of the story | My father brought home our first radio. Half the neighbours came. |
| Past continuous | was / were + verb-ing | the background: an action in progress at a past moment, often interrupted by a past simple event | We were washing our feet when we heard a voice. |
| Past perfect | had + past participle | an action that happened before another past event or time | He had sold two goats to pay for it (before he brought it home). |
Patterns to know
When is the past perfect necessary? When the order of events would otherwise be unclear. Compare: When I arrived, the news started (I arrived, then it started) and When I arrived, the news had started (it started first; I missed the beginning). After after or before, the order is already clear, so the past simple is also correct: After he sold the goats, he bought the radio.
| Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| bring | brought | brought |
| come | came | come |
| hear | heard | heard |
| keep | kept | kept |
| sell | sold | sold |
| spend | spent | spent |
| begin | began | begun |
| fight | fought | fought |
| lead | led | led |
| become | became | become |
Worked example 1: choosing the tense from the meaning
Complete: When Kamanzi ___ (reach) the school, the ceremony ___ (already / begin), so he ___ (stand) at the back. The choir ___ (sing) the national anthem.
Answer: When Kamanzi reached the school, the ceremony had already begun, so he stood at the back. The choir was singing the national anthem.
Warning
The regular past ending is always spelt -ed, but it is pronounced in three different ways. The sound depends on the last sound (not the last letter) of the base verb.
| Ending sound | When | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| /ɪd/, an extra syllable | after /t/ and /d/ | wanted /ˈwɒntɪd/, visited, decided /dɪˈsaɪdɪd/, needed, recorded, protected, celebrated |
| /t/ | after the voiceless sounds /p/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /θ/ | stopped /stɒpt/, asked /ɑːskt/, laughed /lɑːft/, missed /mɪst/, washed /wɒʃt/, watched /wɒtʃt/ |
| /d/ | after all voiced sounds, including every vowel | played /pleɪd/, lived /lɪvd/, called, opened, robbed, used, rescued |
Careful: liberate ends in a /t/ sound, so liberated takes the extra syllable: /ˈlɪbəreɪtɪd/. Always listen to the last sound of the base verb, not to the letters.
Test with your throat. Put your fingers on your throat and say the last sound of the verb. If it buzzes (/b, g, v, z, m, n, l/ or a vowel), the ending is /d/; if it doesn't (/p, k, f, s/), the ending is /t/. Only /t/ and /d/ themselves add a syllable.
Beyond the rule: -ed adjectives. A few adjectives keep an old extra syllable: naked /ˈneɪkɪd/, wicked /ˈwɪkɪd/, beloved /bɪˈlʌvɪd/ (before a noun), a learned professor /ˈlɜːnɪd/ (= very educated), an aged man /ˈeɪdʒɪd/ (= very old). Compare the verbs: I learned /lɜːnd/, a boy aged sixteen /eɪdʒd/.
In connected speech, a /t/ or /d/ ending links to a following vowel (asked_a question /ɑːskt ə/) and is often hard to hear before a consonant (washed the /wɒʃ ðə/). Listen for it anyway: it is the only sign that the story is in the past.
Tip
"Wanted? Needed? Add a syllable." Only verbs that already end in a /t/ or /d/ sound get the extra /ɪd/ syllable. Every other regular verb keeps the same number of syllables in the past: work (1) → worked (1), open (2) → opened (2).
6 Minute Grammar: How to use narrative tenses, BBC Learning English (about 6 minutes, 2015). The presenters tell a story with the past simple, past continuous and past perfect. Write down one example of each tense that you hear.
Practice
Key points
Sources and credits
Quick check
Choose the correct verbs: We ___ our feet when we ___ a strange voice.
