HOW TO describe past experiences

3 Past simple and past continuous

USE Combine the two tenses if you want to make clear something happened while you were in the middle of a longer action going on.

e.g. I was browsing on my laptop when my phone vibrated. e.g. We weretelling ghost stories, when we suddenly hearda shrieking sound.

were telling past continuous

Yes, I have! It was a tall dark figure, with long black hair. It looked weird and a bit gnarly.

heard past simple

Past Now Future Have you ever seen a ghost? Really?? What did it look like? Present perfect Past simple to describe (life) experiences, without a specific reference to time e.g. Haveyou ever seen aghost?

Yes,Ihave!

to talk about precise details of a particular experience: who, when, what, where etc. e.g.Really??Whatdiditlooklike? Itlookedweirdanda bitgnarly. Use keywords such as: ‘ever’ and ‘never’, but also ‘lately’, ‘recently’, ‘already’, ‘yet’, ‘sofar’, ‘upuntilnow’are used in combination with present perfect tense.

Give specific information: e.g. Isaw itaround midnight. It was a tallfigure. HOW TO describe past experiences Past simple and present perfectProefhoofdstuk ©VAN IN

Keep in mind:

The form of the present perfect is explained in the Summaryof Unit 1, p. 34.