Narrative tenses These are the tenses you use to tell stories that happened in the past, namely: past simple past continuous past perfect past perfect continuous

A thief broke into the office where I work. He stole lots of things. I arrived this morning. I called the police. This morning, I arrived at work and saw that a thief had broken into the office and stolen lots of things, so I called the police.

A man was driving in the rain. His brakes failed. He crashed into a tree. I was driving to work I saw the accident. I called an ambulance. I was driving to work this morning when I saw an accident. A man had been driving in the rain and his brakes had failed, so he had crashed into a tree. I then called and ambulance.

6 – 5 – 2 – 1 – 7 – 8 – 3 – 4 – 9 – 10 It was raining heavily. The traffic was terrible. Rainwater accumulated on the streets. Corifeu was flooded. It took me longer than usual to get to P3. I arrived at P3 at 4.20 p.m. I tried to get into the campus. I couldn’t. I called Jamil and cancelled my class. I went home.

6 – 5 – 2 – 1 – 7 – 8 – 3 – 4 – 9 – 10 That Wednesday, at 4.20 p.m., I arrived at P3. It had taken me longer than usual to get there. The traffic was terrible, because it had been raining heavily. I tried to get into the campus, but I couldn’t, because rainwater had accumulated and Corifeu was flooded. I called Jamil and cancelled my class, and went home.