Narrative tenses are the grammatical structures that you use when telling a story, or talking about situations and activities which happened at a defined past time.
The Past Simple Tense
The past simple is used:
- to express a completed action at a definite time in the past. The separate events which occur in sequence in a narrative are expressed using this tense.
- I woke up at 8am, had a shower and ate some breakfast. I left for work at 9am.
- to express past habits.
- I rode my bicycle a lot when I was a child.
“used to + base verb” is often used to express past habits and states that happened in the past, but do not happen now. It cannot be used for actions that only occurred once. “Used to” can use both dynamic verbs and state verbs.
- I used to live on the east side of the city.
- I used to play the piano every Saturday when I was a child.
- I used to love playing the piano every Saturday when I was a child.
Unlock full access by logging in. Registered users can explore the entire lesson and more.