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Past tenses

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 Main past tenses


Present Perfect

Use: Past (recent) action with relevance in the present Form: Subject + have/has + past participle Example: She has finished her homework.

Present Perfect Continuous

Use: Past (recent) action with relevance in the present of which I want to stress the duration or just finished Form: Subject + have/has been + verb-ing Example: They have been working all day.

Simple Past

Use: Completed action in the past – I can find a temporal complement in my phrase Form: Subject + past verb Example: She visited Rome last summer.

Used to

We use used to + base verb to show something happened regularly in the past.

I used to ride my bike to school. → (I did this regularly in the past, but not anymore.)

She used to live in London. → (She lived there before, but she doesn't now.)

They used to be friends. → (They were friends once, but not anymore.)

Structure:

Positive: I used to eat cereal for breakfast. Negative: I didn’t use to like vegetables. Question: Did you use to play an instrument?

Past Continuous

Use: Action in progress at a specific past time – antagonist of the present continuous Form: Subject + was/were + verb-ing Example: They were watching a movie when the phone rang.

Past Perfect

Use: Action completed before another past event Form: Subject + had + past participle Example: He had left by the time I arrived.

Past Perfect Continuous

Use: Action completed before another past event of which I want to stress the duration Form: Subject + had been + verb-ing Example: I had been studying for hours before the exam started.


Simple Past

Focus: When something happened Use it for:

  • Actions completed at a specific time in the past
  • Time expressions like yesterday, last week, in 2020, two days ago

Example: I visited London in 2022. → The action is over/finished, and the time is clearly in the past.

 

Present Perfect

Focus: Connection to now Use it for:

  • Experiences without saying exactly when
  • Actions with present consequences
  • Time expressions like ever, never, just, already, yet, recently, since, for

Example: I have visited London several times. → We don’t know when exactly, but the experience is still relevant or meaningful now.

 

A Quick Contrast:

  • He broke his leg last summer. → Simple Past (finished event with time mentioned now he is healthy again)
  • He has broken his leg. → Present Perfect (the leg is still in a cast—effect seen now)

Present perfect with “how long” (used to ask “Da quanto”)

  • How long have you studied English? → (**Remember the conversion - studi)

With “for” (used to express duration)

  • She has lived in Bologna for ten years. → (Vive a Bologna da 10 anni)

With “since” (used to express the starting point)

  • I have worked at this school since 2018. → (Lavoro in questa scuola dal 2018)
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