IELTS Speaking: Past simple, past continuous and past perfect (narrative tenses)

Telling stories with the 4 narrative tenses:

There are 4 narrative tenses: the past simple, the past continuous, the past perfect simple, and the past perfect continuous.

You can use the 4 narrative tenses in IELTS Speaking, especially when you tell stories about your experiences. You often need to tell such stories in Speaking Part 2.

Look at this Speaking Part 2 question which asks you to describe a problem you had while driving:

Now, let’s look at a model answer that uses a mix of the 4 narrative tenses effectively.

What do you notice about the tenses and the movements in time?

The story gives the main events in the past simple, but regularly uses the other narrative tenses to give background information, say what was happening around the main events, and to move backwards and forwards in time.

Look at the highlighted verbs in the model and try to find:

• the regular past simple

• the irregular past simple

• 2 x the past continuous

• 2 x the past perfect simple

• 2 x the past perfect continuous

“Happened” is a regular past simple verb, “got” is an example of the irregular past simple, “was raining” and “was travelling” are in the past continuous, “had left” is an example of the past perfect simple, and finally, “had been visiting” and “had been driving” are examples of the past perfect continuous tense.

Now, let’s take a look at each of these tenses, how they’re formed, and when to use them, beginning with the past simple tense.

Narrative Tense 1: Past Simple

The past simple is the most important tense for telling stories because we use it to describe the main events. It also moves the story forward because we use it to describe consecutive events - these are events that follow one after the other, moving forward in time.

For example, the model answer uses the past simple to describe 5 consecutive events, 'I reached the traffic jam', then 'I had to slam on the brakes', then 'I turned on the radio', then 'I heard the news', then 'I sat in the traffic'.

Narrative Tense 2: Past Continuous

The past continuous is formed with ‘was’ or ‘were’ + verb + ‘ing’.

When telling stories, we use the past continuous for two reasons. Firstly, we can use it to describe background actions or activities. These are things that were happening around the main event. For example, “it was Sunday evening, and it was raining heavily”. “It was raining” was happening in the background around the main events of the story.

Secondly, we use the past continuous to describe a past action that was happening (or in progress) when another action interrupted (or stopped) it.

It's important to remember that you cannot use a time phrase with the past continuous, so it would be wrong to say, "I was driving home for 2 hours when I suddenly hit heavy traffic".

Narrative Tense 3: Past Perfect Simple

The next narrative tense is the past perfect simple. It’s formed with ‘had’ + past participle.

The past perfect must be used to talk about an earlier past. We use the past perfect to talk about an action that happened before an event that was already in the past. So, the past perfect is usually combined with the past simple. The past simple puts the story in the past, then the past perfect takes us further back in time to an earlier past. 

We also use the past perfect simple to emphasise that an action was completed. This is a key difference with the past perfect continuous. 

Have a look at the two examples below. Which one shows that the action was completed?

Only number 1, the past perfect simple tense, can show completion.

Narrative Tense 4: Past Perfect Continuous

The past perfect continuous is formed by had + been + verb-ing.

The past perfect continuous tense emphasises that an action continued over a period of time. In the model we saw, “I had been visiting my friend… over the weekend”. The past perfect continuous is used here because the activity continued over a period of time - in this case, the weekend.

Sometimes we use the past perfect continuous for an action that was in progress when another action interrupted it. In our example, we saw this with, “I had been driving for about 2 hours when I reached the traffic jam”.

The past perfect continuous emphasises the duration of the action that was interrupted, and it is very often used with a time phrase. We saw this in our example, “I had been driving for about 2 hours”. 

Narrative Tenses: Past Continuous or Past Perfect Continuous?

We use the past perfect continuous to talk about actions that happened before another action in the past, while we use the past continuous to talk about actions that happened around the time of an action in the past.

However, both can be used for actions that were interrupted, or stopped, by another action in the past. The key difference is that the past perfect continuous emphasises length of time, and can be used with time phrases such as 2 hours/ a long time/ a few days. The past continuous tells us nothing about duration (length of time), and cannot be used with time phrases.

Now, it's practice time. Have a look at the following exercises and test your understanding of the 4 narrative tenses:

Exercise 1: Past Perfect Simple vs. Past Perfect Continuous

Exercise 2: Past Continuous vs. Past Perfect Continuous

Exercise 3: Practice the 4 Narrative Tenses

Useful Vocabulary, Answers & Comments:

Useful Vocabulary:

Exercise 1 Answers & Comments:

1. She called the police because someone had stolen her bag.

The sentence shows a completed action - past perfect simple.

2. The roads were dangerous because it had been snowing all morning.

The sentence shows length of time - past perfect continuous

3. He arrived late to the meeting because his car had broken down.

The sentence shows a completed action - past perfect simple

4. By the time Sarah arrived at the station, the train had already left. 

The sentence shows a completed action - past perfect simple

5. He was upset because he had been waiting for the delivery for over two hours. 

The sentence shows length of time - past perfect continuous

6. The children had been playing outside for hours, so they were covered in mud.

The sentence shows length of time - past perfect continuous

7. We had finished lunch when our friends arrived.

The sentence shows a completed action - past perfect simple

8. I could see that they had been arguing from the expressions on their faces.

The sentence suggests length of time, and an interrupted action.

9. She had already written three chapters of her novel by the time her editor called.

The sentence shows a completed action - past perfect simple

Exercise 2 Answers & Comments:

1. 'A' emphasises duration - past perfect continuous.

2. 'B' shows that something continued around the main event - past continuous.

3. In 'B', the action (studying) happened earlier in the past - past perfect continuous.

4. 'B' emphasises duration - past perfect continuous.

5. 'B' focuses on the action happening around the main event - past continuous.

6. 'A' emphasises duration - past perfect continuous.

7. 'A' emphasises duration - past perfect continuous.

Exercise 3 Answers:

Exercise 3 Comments:

There are several examples of the past simple which move the story forward in time.

There is one example of the past perfect continuous in the first paragraph, “I had been wandering”. This sentence emphasises duration and includes a time phrase “for a few hours”, so the past continuous is not possible.

In the second paragraph there is an example of the past continuous. Why not use the past perfect continuous here? Because the action of “trying to decide” was happening around the time of the other action, “the waiter told me”. The action was not interrupted or stopped.

We also have an example of the past perfect continuous in the second paragraph, “she had been perfecting”. Here the past perfect continuous emphasises duration - that the action continued over a long period of time.

Conclusion

Well done, you made it to the end! We covered a lot of important grammar so please don’t worry if you’re feeling confused. Go back over it again, and it will become clearer. The narrative tenses, particularly the past perfect continuous and past continuous can be difficult to understand at first, but if you can use them effectively, you’ll have a great chance of a really high score in IELTS speaking. Best of luck!