Random stories - Three-part phrasal verbs

Random Stories

Illustrating a language point with a story, no doubt with varying degrees of success.

This little story will give you some practice in using three-part phrasal verbs. It includes just about every three-part phrasal verb listed in English Phrasal Verbs in Use (Cambridge). If you need to brush up on your three-part phrasal verbs first, you can look at my previous set of exercises, which includes some grammatical explanation, here.

Random stories - Prepositional verbs

Random Stories

Where I will try to illustrate a language point with a story, no doubt with varying degrees of success.

Here's a little story to give you some practice in prepositional verbs, although I'm afraid it's unlikely to win me a contract with Mills and Boon. It is designed as a follow-up to the lesson on prepositional verbs, where it originally appeared. You might want to do the lesson first. You can find it here.

Random stories - Narrative tenses

Random Stories

Where I will try to illustrate a language point with a story, no doubt with varying degrees of success.

Narrative tenses - a quick reminder

• Past simple
  • Describes the main events of the story
  • Describes sequences of events
  • It is the 'standard' narrative tense. If in doubt, go for past simple.
• Past continuous
  • Describes unfinished actions, especially around a certain time
  • Describes longer actions interrupted by shorter ones
  • Is often used for describing background actions
  • Is sometimes used to make the actions in a story seem more immediate, especially with the word now
• Past perfect
  • Describes actions which took place before the main actions in the story
• Past perfect continuous
  • Describes longer continuous actions which took place before the main actions in the story
  • Is sometimes used to explain the condition of people or things at the time of the main events in the story.

Now practise them with this little story