At first sight and at the beginning of learning, talking about past events in English seems to be very simple: when talking about something that happened in the past one can simply say e.g. I read a book. However, we have already learned that things are usually more complex than that. Therefore, take a look at the four sentences below:
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I have read the book. It’s on your desk.
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I read the book when they entered the room.
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I was reading the book when they entered the room.
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I had read the book when they entered the room.
As we have just reminded ourselves there are four different tenses for talking about past actions and events that we can translate as: Pročitao/la sam knjigu ili čitao/la sam knjigu. Let us now see why all these four different past tenses are necessary to communicate successfully.
Let’s recall the most important rules for past:
| Tense | Description | Example |
|————————|—————————————————————————–|————————————————————————-|
| Past Simple | activities completed at a definite past time | He visited his business partners yesterday. They made a lot of money last year. |
| Past Continuous | activities in progress around a point in past two simultaneous past activities | He was visiting his friends when I called him. While we were discussing the problem, they were having a party. |
| Present Perfect Simple | present result of activities happening at indefinite past time | He has just visited his friends and has decided to help them refurbish the house. I have been to Thailand. |
| Past Perfect Simple | activities which happened before some other past activity | He had visited his friends and told me everything about his visit when I called him. |
Fill in the gaps in the text by putting the verbs into one of the past tenses.
Tanja (1) _ (just/arrived) from the USA. Last month, her company (2) _ (finish) an important project in Los Angeles. They (3) _ (start) it almost 2 years ago and (4) _ (put) a lot of effort into it.
While Tanja (5) _ (work) in the States, her colleagues Marko and Ana (6) _ (do) her job in Zagreb. When I (7) _ (call) her last time, she (8) _ (travel) to New York to sign an important contract.
Tanja is really great. She (9) _ (be) to many different places and she (10) _ (learn) a lot about doing business abroad.
We last (11) __ (see) each other almost a year ago and now I can hardly wait to see her again.
Juče smo prodali svoje dionice.
Došla je nakon što smo potpisali ugovor.
Situacija se činila boljom prošle godine.
Upravo smo stigli iz Londona.
Prije nego što sam došla u Zagreb, živjela sam u Dubrovniku.
Nedavno smo kupili novu opremu.
Dok sam se pripremala za sastanak, oni su ga pokušavali odgoditi.
Razgovarali smo jučer više od tri sata.
Oduvijek je želio učiti španjolski.
