B2 · Upper IntermediateGrammar learning path
Past narrative viewpoints
Control the reader’s viewpoint in longer past narratives. Study completed and ongoing earlier events, combine all four main narrative tenses, and then add habitual would for repeated actions once the past setting is established.
4 lessons 20 exercises
What you will learn
- Use past perfect for earlier completion and background.
- Use past perfect continuous for duration and ongoing cause.
- Coordinate narrative tenses without unnecessary backshifting.
- Use habitual would only for repeated actions in a clear past frame.
Before you start
- Control B1 past simple, past continuous, and basic past perfect.
Lessons in this path
- 1Past Perfect (B2)
Deepens the past perfect for cause, earlier states, optional sequencing, unrealised expectations, reporting, hypotheticals, and inversion.
- 2Past Perfect Continuous
Adds duration and ongoing cause before a past point, contrasting it with past perfect, past continuous, and present perfect continuous.
- 3Narrative tenses
Coordinates past simple, past continuous, past perfect, and past perfect continuous as layers within coherent stories.
- 4Would - Expressing habits in the past
Adds habitual would for repeated past actions in an established narrative frame, contrasting it with used to and past states.