The past: narrative tenses, used to and would

B2+-C1
Grammar
Verbs and tenses

Narrative tenses are verb tenses that are used to talk about the past. They are often found in stories and descriptions of past events, such as personal anecdotes. We can use used to to talk about past states that are not true any more, and used to or would to talk about past habits (repeated past actions) that don’t happen any more.

narrative tenses: describing specific incidents in the past
This happened when I was about five years old. My father had gone away on business for a few days and my brother and I were sleeping in my parents’ bedroom. Before we went to bed that night, I had been reading a very scary story about a wicked witch. In the middle of the night I woke up with a start and saw that a figure in a dark coat was standing at the end of my bed. I screamed at the top of my voice.

When we describe specific incidents in the past, we use narrative tenses, i.e. the past simple, past continuous, and past perfect simple or continuous.

Use the past simple to talk about the main actions in a story (We went to bed … I woke up … I screamed).

Use the past continuous to set the scene (We were sleeping in my parents’ bedroom) and to describe actions in progress in the past (Somebody was standing at the end of my bed).

Use the past perfect and the past perfect continuous to talk about the earlier past, i.e. things which happened before the main events (My father had gone away … I had been reading a story).

*used to* and *would*: describing repeated actions in the past
Every summer my family rented an old house in the South of France. My sister and I used to walk to the harbour every morning and watch the fishermen cleaning their nets. Every night before we went to bed my mother would tell us a story, but she would never read them from a book – she would always make them up herself. When I was a teenager, my friends were always teasing me because of my red hair.

We often use used to + infinitive as an alternative to the past simple to talk about things that we did repeatedly in the past.
- We can also use used to + infinitive to talk about situations or states which have changed, e.g. I used to have much longer hair when I was younger.

We also use would + infinitive as an alternative to used to to talk about things that we did repeatedly in the past.
- However, we don’t use would with stative verbs, i.e. to talk about situations or states which have changed NOT ~~I would have much longer hair when I was younger~~.

We can also use always + past continuous for things that happened repeatedly, especially when they were irritating habits.

Grammar checkpoint
⚠ When we describe past habits or repeated past actions we tend, for stylistic reasons, to use a mixture of used to, would, or the past simple (with adverbs of frequency). Used to and would make it clear that you are talking about something that happened regularly and often convey a sense of nostalgia.

Nigel Bailey

Nigel is a qualified Teacher of English as a Foreign Language and has been teaching in Poland since 2003. He has been teaching over the Internet since 2008 and has taught more than 1,000 students in this way.

Contact Me