Unit 20: Telling stories
Narrative tenses
Select a unit
- 1 Pop-ups
- 2 Hidden talents
- 3 Can't buy me love
- 4 Travellers' tales
- 5 The colleague from hell
- 6 Jurassic mystery: unpacking the past
- 7 Career changes
- 8 Art
- 9 Project management
- 10 The dog ate my homework!
- 11 The diary of a double agent
- 12 Fashion forward
- 13 Flat pack skyscrapers
- 14 Extreme sports
- 15 Food fads
- 16 Me, my selfie and I
- 17 Endangered animals
- 18 A nip and a tuck: cosmetic surgery
- 19 I'm really sorry...
- 20 Telling stories
- 21 Fakes and phrasals
- 22 Looking to the future
- 23 Becoming familiar with things
- 24 From rags to riches
- 25 Against the odds
- 26 Our future on Mars?
- 27 Where is it illegal to get a fish drunk?
- 28 Dodgy dating
- 29 Annoying advice
- 30 I'll have been studying English for thirty weeks
Session 2
When we tell stories, jokes and anecdotes we use particular verb forms. Most of these, but not all, are past forms. Learn more and discover how you can also use the present to talk about the past.
Activity 2
Have you heard the one about ...
A horse walks into a bar ...
There is a genre of short jokes in English that involve people or animals walking into bars. The barman then makes some comment about the customer.
The joke is often language based. To understand these jokes you usually need to understand the different meanings that words and expressions have. There is often a play between literal and idiomatic meanings. Take this joke for example:
A horse walks into a bar. The barman says: "Why the long face?"
Hilarious, isn't it!
To understand this you need to know that if someone has a long face it means they look sad. This is the idiomatic meaning. A horse, of course, has a long face, not idiomatically but really.
OK, this might not be the funniest joke ever, but it does demonstrate an interesting grammar point.
Look at the verb forms in the joke:
A horse walks into a bar. The barman says: "Why the long face?"
They are present.
In informal spoken English it's very common to use present verbs forms when we are telling jokes. This is also true for stories and anecdotes and also when talking about the plots of films and books.
Read the text and complete the activity
Present for the past
Read this description of an unusual event. What do you notice about the verb forms?
"So last Sunday I'm on my way to the shops when I see the strangest thing. There's a giraffe. And it's just walking down the street as if it's on the way to the shops too. I take a picture of it and before you know it my photo goes viral. It's on social media, it's on the news. It's in the papers on Monday and on Tuesday I'm on televsion talking about it. What a week!"
Everything that's described here happened in the past however there are no past verb forms. Present verb forms are used throughout.
Using the present for past events makes the story more engaging and more personal. It's typical in informal spoken English.
To do
Do you remember the story of the man and his grandad going fishing in the last activity? In this quiz you're going to tell the story again only this time using present verb forms where appropriate.
Gone fishing, again
8 Questions
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 1 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 2 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 3 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 4 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 5 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 6 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Look for correct present verb forms.Question 7 of 8
Help
Activity
In the last quiz we had the story of a man and his grandad going fishing. Retell the story using present forms but pay attention. If there is reported speech you may still need to use the past.
Hint
Be careful, there is reported speech here.Question 8 of 8
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
Next
Now it's time to sit back, relax and listen to Catherine and Finn talking about the topic of narrative verb forms in 6 Minute Grammar. Enjoy!
Session Grammar
Present in the past
In informal spoken English present verb forms are often used when telling jokes, anecdotes and stories.
A snail walks into a bar. The barman says: "We don't serve snails here." He puts the snail outside. Exactly one year later the same snail comes back in and says: "What did you do that for?"