The Past Tenses in Narratives – Comparative Examples (2)
Continuing my short series of narrative examples to explain different uses (and the reasons behind different choices) in using past tenses, below is another brief past tense passage. The sentences are numbered, with full explanations below. Past tense narrative...Subjunctive mood, form and use
The subjunctive mood in English is used to describe actions, ideas and events that are not real facts; for example imagined possibilities (or impossibilities!), and future intentions. It is often used in dependent clauses, such as if statements in conditional...
The Past Tenses in Narrative Use – Comparative Examples (1)
As the many uses of the different aspects of English can make choosing between the different tenses confusing, it may help to look at specific narrative texts or sections of English dialogue and analyse why the writer or speaker chooses different tenses. To help...How to use the past perfect continuous
The past perfect continuous can seem quite complicated to form, with had + been + present participle. However, the nice thing about the past perfect continuous is that the words used in the form never change (like the bare infinitive). This is because all three words...Defining and non-defining relative clauses and “that”
Relative clauses add extra information to a sentence by defining a noun. They are usually divided into two types –defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses. A relative clause is one that adds information to a sentence, in relation to a noun. For...Want to Master English?
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