Listening: Past Tenses

Now, let´s practise the listening comprehension skill!

1. You are going to listen to a conversation between friends talking about the past. Hear the conversation (click on the link to download the file) and answer the questions.

2. A challenge: this is a difficult video about puffins, a small bird which lives in the north areas.

Past Simple vs. Past Continuous

In this unit you study the difference between the past simple, the past continuous and the present perfect simple, let´s see when to use them.

• Use the past simple when:

- you enumerate a series of past actions which happend one after another:

   "She came home, switched on the computer and checked her e-mails."

- you just want to mention that an action took place in the past:

   "Collin visited us yesterday."

• Use the past continuous when:

- two past actions happened at the same time:

   "Simon was playing on the computer when his brother was watching TV."

- you want to put emphasis on the progress:

  "At six o´clock Simon was playing football yesterday."

• Use both, past simple and past continuous when:

- you want to express that a new action happened in the middle of another action:

   "The telephone rang while I was having dinner."

Exercise 1: Group the sentences according to the tense used.

Exercise 2: Match the first part of the sentence to the second.

Exercise 3: Type the correct tense.

Exercise 4 and exercise 5: Put the verbs in the correct tense.

• Use the present perfect when:

- you want to put emphasis on the result:

   "I´ve written a book."

- the action has stopped recently:

   "Peter has cooked dinner today."
- finished action that has an influence on the present:

   "I have lost my keys."

- you talk about  "experience" without mentioning the time:

   "I have been to  London."

Exercise 1: Put the verbs into the right form using the present perfect.

Exericse 2:

Exercise 3: Irregular verbs

Test 1, test 2, test 3