Exercises

Narrative tenses

Exercise 1

1. I told John not to drive, because he had been drinking all night.

We use the past perfect continuous with dynamic verbs to talk about longer continuous actions that started earlier in the past than the main events of the story.

1. Why did you change the channel? I was watching that movie.

We use the past continuous for actions in progress in the past or longer actions interrupted by shorter actions in past simple. In the sentence above, when you changed the channel, watching the movie was in progress.

1. When I was getting out of the shower the lights went off.

We use the past continuous for actions in progress in the past or longer actions interrupted by shorter actions in past simple.

1. When I saw Clara I realised that she hadn't changed much in all those years.

We use the past perfect simple (and not continuous) to say how much of something or how many things we had done earlier in the past.

1. When he entered the room somebody hit him in the head.

We use the past simple to talk about past events in chronological order; i.e. for the main events of a story.

1. He admitted that he had taken all the money from the box.

We use the past perfect simple to talk about earlier events and experiences, or single actions completed earlier in the past.

1. The burglar was trying to open the safe when he heard the owner come in.

We use the past continuous for actions in progress in the past or longer actions interrupted by shorter actions in past simple.

1. I knew he had been crying because his eyes were red.

We use the past perfect continuous with dynamic verbs to talk about longer continuous actions that started earlier in the past than the main events of the story.

1. The plane in which the football team were travelling crashed and none of them survived.

We use the past continuous for actions in progress in the past or longer actions interrupted by shorter actions in past simple.

1. We had been flying for about 20 minutes when the plane was hit by turbulence.

We use the past perfect continuous with dynamic verbs to talk about longer continuous actions that started earlier in the past than the main events of the story.

Exercise 2

Many years ago I to spend New Year's Eve with my family. I new year with my parents but I had nowhere to go, and being with my family seemed preferable to being on my own. When my parents the door I could see they , and that they were genuinely happy to see me. I to heroin for 10 years, and for them, seeing me was the confirmation that I wasn't dead in an alley. Unfortunately, I nothing new or exciting to tell them, just the same sad old stories. I from crappy job to crappy job, being invariably sacked, and I to crime whenever I was out of money. Same old, same old.

During dinner, I a few glassfuls of whisky. I something to ease the pain, because for the whole evening my sisters at me with such contempt that it was unbearable. My own sisters me. Then I had a moment of realisation; I that they would never hate me as much as I hated myself.

When we finished dinner I my glass. "I'm going into rehab," I said. My parents at me with some kind of hope. Parents never lose hope. But my sisters just down with disdain. They perfectly well that I had been in rehab centres many times before, and that this time wouldn't be different.

But this time it was different. After that day, I that look in my sisters' eyes every day, every time I to shoot some heroin. 10 years later, on a New Year's Eve, I thanked my sisters because they my life. They kissed me with their new look in their eyes, the look of love.

Exercise 3

We thought that we were on the right path when suddenly we a very familiar rock and that we in circles for quite a long time. We totally lost, and the fact that we our water provisions wasn't very promising. We to go uphill because according to John, it would be easier to spot a way out from an elevated point. He that from a documentary he about survival. But what the documentary John was that maybe it’s not such a good idea to go up a mountain when you are exhausted and waterless.

We one mile when we to have a horrible feeling that that might be our last trek. Of course, we anything, but we could see in each other’s eyes that at that precise moment we precisely the same. We couldn't walk any longer, so we to sit and rest, quietly, because neither of us wanted to share any of our gloomy thoughts.

"Hello, can I help you?" we suddenly . We our heads and a little man with slanted eyes and a childish grin. He right next to us. I wondered where he from and how long he there. But it didn't matter really, because we were safe.