Narrative tenses: three roles

Each past tense does a different job in a story. The Past Simple tells what happened next, the Past Continuous shows what was going on at that moment, and the Past Perfect goes back to something earlier.

• Past Simple → main event: it rang
• Past Continuous → background: was waiting
• Past Perfect → earlier: had left

• I was walking into the interview room when my phone suddenly rang.
• By the time we got to the airport, the flight had closed.
• At first nobody noticed the mistake because everyone was looking at the screen.

Past habits: used to and would

Used to describes both habits and states that belong to the past. Would describes only repeated actions, and only after the past period has been made clear.

used to + base verb (habits, states) · would + base verb (repeated actions only)

• I used to hate making decisions.
• When we lived abroad, my parents would phone every Sunday.
• Did you use to travel a lot for work?