In the English language, there are three main tense - The Present, the Past Tense and the Future Tense. Broadly, this type of tense is used to talk about something that happened at a time before now, the present tense is used to talk about something that is happening now and the future tense is used to talk about something that will happen in a time later than now. However, even within each of these tenses, there are sub-tenses.
The first and the most basic past tense is the simple past tense. Simply put, this tense is used to talk about something that used to happen in the past. Examples : John studied French. The sentence means that John studied French sometime in the past. It does not specify whether he studied French six months ago or six years ago. Samantha shopped at the mall. This sentence means that I had my lunch sometime in the past. Peter played tennis. This sentence means that Peter played tennis sometime earlier. The second type of past tense is the past continuous tense.This tense is used to talk about a continuing action in the past. Examples : Samantha was shopping at the mall. This sentence means that at that particular time in the past, Samantha was shopping or the action was in progress at that time. Peter was playing tennis. This sentence is used to imply that action of playing tens was going on at that particular time. The third kind of past tense, which is slightly complicated, is the past perfect tense. The word 'had' is used in the past perfect tense. It is used to talk about an action which had already finished at that time in the past. Examples : Samantha had shopped in the mall.
Summary
The simple past is formed for regular verbs by adding -d or - ed to the root of a word.
The past progressive is formed by using a simple past form of to be (was or were) and the main verb's present participle.
The past perfect is formed by combining the simple past form of to have with the past participle form of the main verb.
The past perfect progressive is formed by had (the simple past of to have), been (the past participle of to be) and the present participle of the main verb.
Thus these were the most common types of past tenses used in the English languages. For learning more about the types of Tenses with proper examples-you can visit Englishleap.com - The world's no.1 website for learning English.
Learn more about tenses in English from Englishleap.com - The world's no. 1 English learning website. Your best guide to learn English grammar- Tenses, Nouns, Adverbs etc.
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