Past Tenses

6. Past Continuous Tense

This tense is used to say when we were in the middle of doing at a particular moment in the past.

FORM:

(+) S + was/were + Verb-ing

ex: He was reading

(-) S + was/were + not + Verb-ing

ex: He wasn’t reading

(?) Was/were + S + Verb-ing

ex: Was He reading?

7. Past Perfect Tense

The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.

FORM:

had+past participle

ex: I had Listen to the radio when she come home

8. Past Perfect Continuous Tense

We use the Past Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and continued up until another time in the past. “For five minutes” and “for two weeks” are both durations which can be used with the Past Perfect Continuous. Notice that this is related to the Present Perfect Continuous however, the duration does not continue until now, it stops before something else in the past.

FORM:

S + had + been + Verb-ing

ex: Lina had been study at the university for 1 year before she left to Korea.