Amy said:
I always get confused with Past Tense, Past Perfect Tense, Past Participle, Past Progressive Tense, Past Perfect Progressive Tense, Past Simple Tense.
So can anyone tell me the difference between them?
Simple Past: I walked
Past Perfect: I had walked
Past Participle: a walked dog
Past Progressive: I was walking
Past Perfect Progressive: I had been walking
The difference between the Simple and the Progressive is like the difference between a snapshot and a video. The Simple expresses a still picture, whereas the video expresses movement.
I walked to the store. (a still picture)
I was walking to the store. (movement)
The difference between the Simple Past and the Past Perfect has to do with the number of events:
Event: I walked to the store. (One event)
Events:
I had walked the dog before
I did my homework. (Two events)
With the Past Perfect, the event that happened first takes 'had -ed':
First, I walked the dog, and then I did my homework.
I had walked the dog before I did my homework.
Note, since 'before' and 'after' already tell us that one event happened before/after the other event, some speakes will omit the Past Perfect marker 'had' because they feel it's redundant information:
I
had walked to the store before I did my homework. (OK)
I walked to the store before I did my homework. (OK)
A Participle is a word that ends in -ed or -ing. They have two functions: as an adjective, they modify nouns, and as a part of a verb, they modify verbs. For example, the words 'walked' and 'walking' in the Past Perfect structures 'had
walked' and 'have been
walking' are participles. A participle that ends in -ed is calles a past participle and a participle that ends in -ing is called a present participle.
a
walked dog (past participle)
a
walking dog (present participle)
have
walked (past participle)
have been
walking (present participle)
I
walked (Past tense verb)
