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• The Past Tense l Explanation, Examples & Worksheet

The Past Tense l Explanation, Examples & Worksheet

Published on September 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on November 1, 2023.

The past tense is a verb tense used to talk about past actions, states of being, or events.

There are four past tense forms: the past simple (e.g., “you cooked”), the past progressive (e.g., “he was singing”), the past perfect (e.g., “I had arrived”), and the past perfect progressive (e.g., “They had been driving”).

Table of contents

Simple past, past progressive, past perfect, past perfect progressive, worksheet: past tense, frequently asked questions about the past tense.

The simple past tense is used to talk about actions or events that were completed in the past.

The simple past of regular verbs is formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the infinitive form (e.g., “cook” becomes “cooked”). The past tense of irregular verbs don’t follow a particular pattern and can be formed in various ways (e.g., “sing” becomes “sang”).

Most verbs in the simple past don’t change form depending on the subject. One exception is the irregular verb “be,” which is conjugated as either “was” or “were,” depending on the subject.

Aria was late for work yesterday.

We watched a movie last Friday night.

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The past progressive is used to refer to an action or event that was taking place at a time in the past. It can be used to indicate that an ongoing past action was interrupted by another action or that two past actions were occurring at the same time.

The past progressive is formed using the past tense of “be” (i.e., “was/were”) along with the present participle (“-ing” form) of the main verb.

Amir was studying while his roommate was cooking dinner.

We were hiking in the mountains when we saw a bear.

The past perfect is used to indicate that a past action or event took place prior to another past action or event. It can also be used in conditional sentences to talk about a hypothetical past event.

The past perfect is formed using the auxiliary verb “had” and the past participle of the main verb.

I had never tasted Sushi until last night.

By the time we arrived at the theater , the movie had already started .

The past perfect progressive is used to indicate that an action began in the past and continued up until another time in the past.

The past perfect progressive is formed by adding the auxiliary verbs “had” and “been” before the present participle of the main verb.

Amy had been cooking for hours when the guests canceled .

I had been searching for my missing keys when I realized they were in my pocket.

Practice using the past tense correctly with the exercises below. In the blank space in each sentence, fill in the correct past tense form based on the verb specified.

• Practice questions
• Answers and explanations
• I was __________ [cook] dinner when you called.
• Anna __________ [play] piano when she was a child.
• Dave had been __________ [work] as a teacher when he won the lottery.
• Eva had already __________ [leave] the office by the time I arrived.
• This sentence uses the past progressive. The past progressive is formed using “was/were” along with the present participle (“-ing” form) of the main verb.
• This sentence uses the simple past. The simple past of regular verbs is formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the infinitive of the verb (e.g., “play” becomes “played”).
• This sentence is in the past perfect progressive. The past perfect progressive is formed using “had” and “been” along with the present participle of the main verb .
• This sentence is in the past perfect. The past perfect is formed using “had” and the past participle of the main verb.

The past tense form of “lead” is “led.” It’s used to describe a past action (e.g., “The coach led his team to the championship”).

The past participle of “lead” is also “led” (e.g., “He had led the team as far as he could”).

The past tense form of “lay” is “laid.” It’s used to describe a past action (e.g., “I laid the book down on the table”).

The past participle of “lay” is also “laid” (e.g., “I had just laid the book down when the phone rang”).

The past tense form of “choose” is “chose.” It’s used to describe a past action (e.g., “Ava chose to study science”).

The past participle of “choose” is “chosen” (e.g., “We had just chosen a dessert when the waiter told us the kitchen was closed for the evening”).

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Verb Tenses

What this handout is about.

The present simple, past simple, and present perfect verb tenses account for approximately 80% of verb tense use in academic writing. This handout will help you understand how to use these three verb tenses in your own academic writing.

Click here for a color-coded illustration of changing verb tenses in academic writing.

Present simple tense

The present simple tense is used:

In your introduction, the present simple tense describes what we already know about the topic. In the conclusion, it says what we now know about the topic and what further research is still needed.

“The data suggest…” “The research shows…”

“The dinoflagellate’s TFVCs require an unidentified substance in fresh fish excreta” (Penrose and Katz, 330).

“There is evidence that…”

“So I’m walking through the park yesterday, and I hear all of this loud music and yelling. Turns out, there’s a free concert!” “Shakespeare captures human nature so accurately.”

Past simple tense

Past simple tense is used for two main functions in most academic fields.

“…customers obviously want to be treated at least as well on fishing vessels as they are by other recreation businesses. [General claim using simple present] De Young (1987) found the quality of service to be more important than catching fish in attracting repeat customers. [Specific claim from a previous study using simple past] (Marine Science)

We conducted a secondary data analysis… (Public Health) Descriptional statistical tests and t-student test were used for statistical analysis. (Medicine) The control group of students took the course previously… (Education)

Present perfect tense

The present perfect acts as a “bridge” tense by connecting some past event or state to the present moment. It implies that whatever is being referred to in the past is still true and relevant today.

“There have been several investigations into…” “Educators have always been interested in student learning.”

Some studies have shown that girls have significantly higher fears than boys after trauma (Pfefferbaum et al., 1999; Pine &; Cohen, 2002; Shaw, 2003). Other studies have found no gender differences (Rahav and Ronen, 1994). (Psychology)

Special notes

Can i change tenses.

Yes. English is a language that uses many verb tenses at the same time. The key is choosing the verb tense that is appropriate for what you’re trying to convey.

What’s the difference between present simple and past simple for reporting research results?

• Past simple limits your claims to the results of your own study. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers were moody.” (In this study, teenagers were moody.)
• Present simple elevates your claim to a generalization. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers are moody.” (Teenagers are always moody.)

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Biber, Douglas. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English . New York: Longman.

Hawes, Thomas, and Sarah Thomas. 1997. “Tense Choices in Citations.” Research into the Teaching of English 31 (3): 393-414.

Hinkel, Eli. 2004. Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Penrose, Ann, and Steven Katz. 2004. Writing in the Sciences: Exploring the Conventions of Scientific Discourse , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Swales, John, and Christine B. Feak. 2004. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills , 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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• Writing Tips

Grammar Tips: Using the Past Tense

3-minute read

• 13th March 2018

The past includes everything that has ever happened . And with every second that passes, the past gets bigger and bigger! As such, there’s plenty of stuff in the past we might want to write about .

Lucky for us, then, we have the past tense to talk about things in the past. But to make sure your work is error free , you need to know how to use the different forms of this tense. We explain all here (with a little help from Isaac Newton).

Simple Past Tense

The most basic form is the simple past tense. We use this to discuss something that both began and ended in the past:

Isaac Newton invented the cat flap.

Here, for example, we use the simple past tense verb “invented” to show that the act of invention occurred entirely in the past.

Most simple past tense verbs are, like “invented,” formed by adding “-ed” to the end of a base verb (e.g., invent → invented ). However, you need to watch out for irregular verbs that don’t fit this pattern, such as “swim” (simple past tense = swam ).

Past Continuous Tense

As the name suggests, the past continuous tense is used to refer to an ongoing action in the past:

Newton was sitting under a tree.

The key phrase here is “was sitting,” which combines the simple past tense “was” with the present participle “sitting.” This gives us a sense of a continuous action (“sitting”) occurring in the past.

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The past continuous tense can also be used to frame another action:

Newton was sitting under a tree when an apple fell to the ground.

The past continuous “was sitting” here describes an action that is then interrupted by something else. We can therefore see the difference between the ongoing “was sitting” and the sudden fall of the apple, which is described using the past simple verb “fell.”

Past Perfect Tense

We use the past perfect tense to describe something that happened before, up until, or since something else. It is formed by combining the word “had” with a past participle :

Newton had studied many subjects by the time he graduated.

The key here is a sense of completion: the past perfect phrase “had studied” implies that the action had finished by the point the second part of the sentence occurred.

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

The past perfect continuous tense combines the past perfect and past continuous tenses. It is therefore most commonly used to describe an ongoing action that occurred before something else. We form the past perfect continuous tense by combining “had been” and a present participle:

Newton had been acting as Master of the Royal Mint for five years when he was knighted.

Here, we get the sense of a continuous action from the present participle “acting.” But the “had been” gives it a sense of completion similar to the perfect tense. The result is that “had been acting” frames the later action of being “knighted.”

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Table of irregular verbs

Note that be has several irregular forms:

Present: ( I ) am , ( she, he, it ) is , ( you , we , they ) are

Past: ( I, she, he, it ) was , ( you , we , they ) were

-ed form: been

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Conjugation verb essay

Model : obey

Auxiliary : have , be

Other forms: essay oneself / not essay

Contractions

• he/she/it essays
• you essayed
• he/she/it essayed
• they essayed

Present continuous

• I am essaying
• you are essaying
• he/she/it is essaying
• we are essaying
• they are essaying

Present perfect

• I have essayed
• you have essayed
• he/she/it has essayed
• we have essayed
• they have essayed
• I will essay
• you will essay
• he/she/it will essay
• we will essay
• they will essay

Future perfect

• I will have essayed
• you will have essayed
• he/she/it will have essayed
• we will have essayed
• they will have essayed

Past continous

• I was essaying
• you were essaying
• he/she/it was essaying
• we were essaying
• they were essaying

Past perfect

• I had essayed
• you had essayed
• he/she/it had essayed
• we had essayed
• they had essayed

Future continuous

• I will be essaying
• you will be essaying
• he/she/it will be essaying
• we will be essaying
• they will be essaying

Present perfect continuous

• I have been essaying
• you have been essaying
• he/she/it has been essaying
• we have been essaying
• they have been essaying

Past perfect continuous

• I had been essaying
• you had been essaying
• he/she/it had been essaying
• we had been essaying
• they had been essaying

Future perfect continuous

• I will have been essaying
• you will have been essaying
• he/she/it will have been essaying
• we will have been essaying
• they will have been essaying
• let's essay

Perfect participle

• having essayed

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• Knowledge Base
• Simple Past Tense | Examples & Exercises

Past Simple | Examples & Exercises

Published on 28 August 2023 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on 30 October 2023.

The past simple tense is a verb form used to refer to an action or series of actions that were completed in the past.

The past simple tense of regular verbs is formed by adding “-ed” to the infinitive form of the verb (e.g., “cook” becomes “cooked”). Most verbs in the simple past take the same form regardless of the subject (e.g., “He worked/we worked”).

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Table of contents

How to use the past simple, present perfect vs past simple, simple past vs past perfect, how to form negatives, how to form questions, how to form the passive voice, exercises: past simple tense, other interesting language articles, frequently asked questions about the simple past tense.

The past simple tense (also called the simple past or preterite ) is used to describe an action or series of actions that occurred in the past.

The past simple of regular verbs is typically formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the infinitive (e.g., “talk” becomes “talked”).

Irregular verbs don’t follow a specific pattern: some take the same form as the infinitive (e.g., “put”), while others change completely (e.g., “go” becomes “went”).

Most verbs in the simple past tense don’t follow subject-verb agreement (i.e., they don’t change form depending on the subject).

Ariana rented a car and drove to the coast.

We visited a museum, walked the Champs-Élysées, and dined at a fancy restaurant.

Forming the simple past

The simple past of regular verbs is usually formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the verb (e.g., “guess” becomes “guessed”). However, this can vary depending on the verb’s ending.

Irregular verb: “be”

The stative verb “be” in the simple past tense is used to describe unchanging past conditions (e.g., “My father was a good man”) and temporary past situations (e.g., “The children were tired”). Unlike other verbs in the simple past, “be” changes form depending on the subject, as shown in the table below.

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Both the present perfect and past simple tenses are used to refer to past action. However, they serve different purposes:

• The present perfect is used to refer to an action that began in the past and may continue or to an action that took place in the past and has present consequences.
• The past simple is typically used to describe an action that was completed in the past and is not ongoing.

I have run a marathon before. [I may run a marathon again]

I was a vegetarian when I was younger.

While the past simple is used to describe an action or series of actions that occurred in the past, the past perfect is used to indicate that an action was completed before another past action began.

In the past simple tense, negative statements are formed by adding “did not” (or the contraction “didn’t”) between the subject and the infinitive form of the verb.

For the verb “be,” negative statements are formed by adding “was not/were not” (or the contractions “wasn’t/weren’t”) after the subject .

To ask a yes–no question using the simple past, add “did” before the subject and the infinitive form of the verb.

To ask a question starting with a wh-word (an interrogative pronoun like “who” or an interrogative adverb like “where”), follow the same word order as above, but add the pronoun or adverb at the start of the sentence.

Why did Eva leave so early?

Passive sentences are ones in which the subject is not the person or thing performing the action. Instead, the subject is the person or thing being acted upon.

In the past simple, passive constructions are formed using a subject , “was”/“were”, and the past participle of the verb.

Maria was ignored by the salesman.

Practise using the past simple correctly with the exercises below. In the blank space in each sentence, fill in the correct past simple form based on the subject and verb specified (e.g., “[he / talk]” becomes “he talked”). Some answers may also be negative statements or questions.

• Practice questions
• Answers and explanations
• __________ [you / go] to the shop this morning.
• __________ [they / play] a board game.
• __________ [my son / not / study] for the exam.
• __________ [the band / rehearse] every day this week.
• __________ [I / plan] to be home by six!
• When __________ [you / travel] to France?
• The past simple form of the irregular verb “go” is “went”.
• The past simple form of the regular verb “play” is “played”.
• In the past simple tense, negative statements are formed by adding “did not” (or the contraction “didn’t”) between the subject (“my son”) and the infinitive form of the verb (“study”).
• The past simple form of the regular verb “rehearse” is “rehearsed”.
• For short verbs, where the last three letters follow a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern (e.g., “plan”), you double the final consonant and add “-ed”.
• To ask a question starting with a wh-word, add the wh-word at the start of the sentence, followed by “did”, the subject (“you”), and the infinitive form of the verb (“travel”).

If you want to know more about commonly confused words, definitions, common mistakes, and differences between US and UK spellings, make sure to check out some of our other language articles with explanations, examples, and quizzes.

Nouns & pronouns

• Common nouns
• Proper nouns
• Collective nouns
• Personal pronouns
• Uncountable and countable nouns
• Verb tenses
• Phrasal verbs
• Sentence structure
• Active vs passive voice
• Subject-verb agreement
• Interjections
• Determiners
• Prepositions

The simple past tense of the verb “read” is “read” (e.g., “I read a book last week”).

While “read” is spelled the same in both its past and present forms, its pronunciation differs depending on the tense :

• The simple present form is pronounced “reed”.
• The simple past form is pronounced “red”.

The simple past tense of the verb “teach” is “taught” (e.g., “You taught me a lesson”).

While the simple past of a regular verb is typically formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the infinitive (e.g., “talk” becomes “talked”), irregular verbs like “teach” don’t follow a specific pattern.

The simple past tense of the verb “go” is “went” (e.g., “Ava went to Spain”).

While the simple past of a regular verb is typically formed by adding “-ed” to the end of the infinitive (e.g., “jump” becomes “jumped”), irregular verbs like “go” don’t follow a specific pattern.

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Ryan, E. (2023, October 30). Past Simple | Examples & Exercises. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/verb/past-simple/

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Essay Past Tense: Verb Forms, Conjugate ESSAY

The past tense of essay is essayed

The Forms of Essay

Conjugate essay, essay in present simple (indefinite) tense, essay in present continuous (progressive) tense, essay in present perfect tense, essay in present perfect continuous tense, essay in past simple (indefinite) tense, essay in past continuous (progressive) tense, essay in past perfect tense, essay in past perfect continuous tense, essay in future simple (indefinite) tense, essay in future continuous (progressive) tense, essay in future perfect tense, essay in future perfect continuous tense, leave a comment cancel reply.

Essay Past Tense

essayed past tense of essay is essayed.

Essay verb forms

Conjugation of essay.

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PastTenses is a database of English verbs. One can check verbs forms in different tenses. Use our search box to check present tense, present participle tense, past tense and past participle tense of desired verb.

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A Complete Guide to the Past Tenses

Posted by David S. Wills | Sep 29, 2017 | Grammar | 0

Introduction

In this previous article , we briefly looked at what verb tenses are and then explored the present tenses of the English language. In this chapter, we will look into the past tenses.

As with the present, there are four aspects to the past tense in English, and each can be divided into positive, negative, and question forms. They look like this:

Let’s look at each tense in turn.

Past Simple

This is a really common and basic part of the English language, and knowledge of it is essential to IELTS success . Generally speaking, we form the past simple by adding “-ed” to a verb. However, in English there are hundreds of irregular verbs . So, whereas you might say “I walked” or “She watched,” there are also cases like “We ate” or “They wrote” for which you simply need to remember the correct past form. Here is an example using an irregular verb:

When to Use Past Simple

• I graduated in 2007.
• She left home two years ago.
• We called her every day.
• He spoke with his grandmother often.

Past Continuous

Like the present continuous, the past continuous is formed using “to be” with “verb+ing”. However, as this is a past tense, “to be” is changed into the past (“was” or “were”) while the present participle (“verb+ing”) remains.

When to Use Past Continuous

There are three uses that all suggest an act that was ongoing for a period of time.

• We were walking our dogs last night.
• I was brushing my teeth at ten o’clock.
• I was washing the dishes when I cut my hand.
• She was driving to work when the accident happened.
• They were listening to music when the doorbell rang.
• It was sleeping when the fireworks started.

Past Perfect

While the present perfect uses “has” or “have,” the past perfect simply uses “had” before the past participle of the main verb.

When to Use Past Perfect

The past perfect is used to refer to an event or action that took place prior to the time period considered. Therefore, in the examples above, the conversation would revolve around an event that took place in the past, but the eating took place before that. For example:

A: Do you remember last year when we first arrived at the hotel? B: Yes, I remember. Oddly enough, I recall being very hungry! A: Well, you had not eaten for hours.

In this case, we use the past perfect to show that the eating took place (or in this case, didn’t take place) before the arrival at the hotel.

Here are some more related uses:

• We had lived in that house for six years.
• By then, they had studied for a long time.
• I wasn’t afraid because I had expected the worst.
• He felt confident because he had already prepared.

You can learn about the difference between the past perfect and present perfect tenses here .

Past Perfect Continuous

The past perfect continuous is essentially the same as the present perfect continuous except that the point of reference is in the past.

When to Use Past Perfect Continuous

This tense describes an action that occurred further back in time than the other events, but that overlaps them.

• They had been studying for several hours when the phone rang.
• She had been working in a hospital before the war began.

Past Tenses for IELTS Writing Task 1

Not only is the past simple incredibly common in everyday speech, but it is also very useful for the writing exam. In particular, in task 1 you will mostly be using the past simple to describe details in a line graph or table because they will likely feature dates that are from the past. Here are some examples:

• Prices rose in the first quarter.
• The interest rate went up between 1999 and 2001.
• French people consumed more wine than Italian people during the period.
• In 1860, the population stood at four million.

You may also use the past perfect in order to explain relationships between points in time with greater clarity. As we discussed previously in the past perfect section, this tense shows an action that occurred prior to another action in the past. Here are some examples:

• After it had risen to forty-six, the total volume then dropped to thirty-eight.
• Sales returned to a higher level after they had fallen to just six thousand.

The other past tenses are not particularly useful in the IELTS writing exam , but can greatly improve the accuracy of your overall English. Therefore, they may come in useful for other parts of the IELTS  exam.

About The Author

David S. Wills

David S. Wills is the author of Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' and the founder/editor of Beatdom literary journal. He lives and works in rural Cambodia and loves to travel. He has worked as an IELTS tutor since 2010, has completed both TEFL and CELTA courses, and has a certificate from Cambridge for Teaching Writing. David has worked in many different countries, and for several years designed a writing course for the University of Worcester. In 2018, he wrote the popular IELTS handbook, Grammar for IELTS Writing and he has since written two other books about IELTS. His other IELTS website is called IELTS Teaching.

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Verb Tense Consistency

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This handout explains and describes the sequence of verb tenses in English.

Throughout this document, example sentences with nonstandard or inconsistent usage have verbs in red .

Controlling shifts in verb tense

Writing often involves telling stories. Sometimes we narrate a story as our main purpose in writing; sometimes we include brief anecdotes or hypothetical scenarios as illustrations or reference points in an essay.

Even an essay that does not explicitly tell a story involves implied time frames for the actions discussed and states described. Changes in verb tense help readers understand the temporal relationships among various narrated events. But unnecessary or inconsistent shifts in tense can cause confusion.

Generally, writers maintain one tense for the main discourse and indicate changes in time frame by changing tense relative to that primary tense, which is usually either simple past or simple present. Even apparently non-narrative writing should employ verb tenses consistently and clearly.

General guideline: Do not shift from one tense to another if the time frame for each action or state is the same.

Explains is present tense, referring to a current state; asked is past, but should be present ( ask ) because the students are currently continuing to ask questions during the lecture period.

CORRECTED: The instructor explains the diagram to students who ask questions during the lecture.

Darkened and sprang up are past tense verbs; announces is present but should be past ( announced ) to maintain consistency within the time frame.

CORRECTED: About noon the sky darkened , a breeze sprang up , and a low rumble announced the approaching storm.

Walk is present tense but should be past to maintain consistency within the time frame ( yesterday ); rode is past, referring to an action completed before the current time frame.

CORRECTED: Yesterday we walked to school but later rode the bus home.

General guideline: Do shift tense to indicate a change in time frame from one action or state to another.

Love is present tense, referring to a current state (they still love it now;) built is past, referring to an action completed before the current time frame (they are not still building it.)

Began is past tense, referring to an action completed before the current time frame; had reached is past perfect, referring to action from a time frame before that of another past event (the action of reaching was completed before the action of beginning.)

Are installing is present progressive, referring to an ongoing action in the current time frame (the workers are still installing, and have not finished;) will need is future, referring to action expected to begin after the current time frame (the concert will start in the future, and that's when it will need amplification.)

Controlling shifts in a paragraph or essay

General guideline: Establish a primary tense for the main discourse, and use occasional shifts to other tenses to indicate changes in time frame.

• Rely on past tense to narrate events and to refer to an author or an author's ideas as historical entities (biographical information about a historical figure or narration of developments in an author's ideas over time).
• Use present tense to state facts, to refer to perpetual or habitual actions, and to discuss your own ideas or those expressed by an author in a particular work. Also use present tense to describe action in a literary work, movie, or other fictional narrative. Occasionally, for dramatic effect, you may wish to narrate an event in present tense as though it were happening now. If you do, use present tense consistently throughout the narrative, making shifts only where appropriate.
• Future action may be expressed in a variety of ways, including the use of will, shall, is going to, are about to, tomorrow and other adverbs of time, and a wide range of contextual cues.

Using other tenses in conjunction with simple tenses

It is not always easy (or especially helpful) to try to distinguish perfect and/or progressive tenses from simple ones in isolation, for example, the difference between simple past progressive ("She was eating an apple") and present perfect progressive ("She has been eating an apple"). Distinguishing these sentences in isolation is possible, but the differences between them make clear sense only in the context of other sentences since the time-distinctions suggested by different tenses are relative to the time frame implied by the verb tenses in surrounding sentences or clauses.

Example 1: Simple past narration with perfect and progressive elements

On the day in question...

By the time Tom noticed the doorbell, it had already rung three times. As usual, he had been listening to loud music on his stereo. He turned the stereo down and stood up to answer the door. An old man was standing on the steps. The man began to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example, the progressive verbs had been listening and was standing suggest action underway at the time some other action took place. The stereo-listening was underway when the doorbell rang. The standing on the steps was underway when the door was opened. The past perfect progressive verb had been listening suggests action that began in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that was still underway as another action began.

If the primary narration is in the present tense, then the present progressive or present perfect progressive is used to indicate action that is or has been underway as some other action begins. This narrative style might be used to describe a scene from a novel, movie, or play, since action in fictional narratives is conventionally treated as always present. For example, we refer to the scene in Hamlet in which the prince first speaks (present) to the ghost of his dead father or the final scene in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing , which takes place (present) the day after Mookie has smashed (present perfect) the pizzeria window. If the example narrative above were a scene in a play, movie, or novel, it might appear as follows.

Example 2: Simple present narration with perfect and progressive elements

In this scene...

By the time Tom notices the doorbell, it has already rung three times. As usual, he has been listening to loud music on his stereo. He turns the stereo down and stands up to answer the door. An old man is standing on the steps. The man begins to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example as in the first one, the progressive verbs has been listening and is standing indicate action underway as some other action takes place. The present perfect progressive verb has been listening suggests action that began in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that is still underway as another action begins. The remaining tense relationships parallel those in the first example.

In all of these cases, the progressive or -ing part of the verb merely indicates ongoing action, that is, action underway as another action occurs. The general comments about tense relationships apply to simple and perfect tenses, regardless of whether there is a progressive element involved.

It is possible to imagine a narrative based on a future time frame as well, for example, the predictions of a psychic or futurist. If the example narrative above were spoken by a psychic, it might appear as follows.

Example 3: Simple future narration with perfect and progressive elements

Sometime in the future...

By the time Tom notices the doorbell, it will have already rung three times. As usual, he will have been listening to loud music on his stereo. He will turn the stereo down and will stand up to answer the door. An old man will be standing on the steps. The man will begin to speak slowly, asking for directions.

In this example as in the first two, the progressive verbs will have been listening and will be standing indicate ongoing action. The future perfect progressive verb will have been listening suggests action that will begin in the time frame prior to the main narrative time frame and that will still be underway when another action begins. The verb notices here is in present-tense form, but the rest of the sentence and the full context of the narrative cue us to understand that it refers to future time. The remaining tense relationships parallel those in the first two examples.

General guidelines for use of perfect tenses

In general the use of perfect tenses is determined by their relationship to the tense of the primary narration. If the primary narration is in simple past, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in past perfect. If the primary narration is in simple present, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in present perfect. If the primary narration is in simple future, then action initiated before the time frame of the primary narration is described in future perfect.

Past primary narration corresponds to Past Perfect ( had + past participle) for earlier time frames

Present primary narration corresponds to Present Perfect ( has or have + past participle) for earlier time frames

Future primary narration corresponds to Future Perfect ( will have + past participle) for earlier time frames

The present perfect is also used to narrate action that began in real life in the past but is not completed, that is, may continue or may be repeated in the present or future. For example: "I have run in four marathons" (implication: "so far... I may run in others"). This usage is distinct from the simple past, which is used for action that was completed in the past without possible continuation or repetition in the present or future. For example: "Before injuring my leg, I ran in four marathons" (implication: "My injury prevents me from running in any more marathons").

Time-orienting words and phrases like before, after, by the time , and others—when used to relate two or more actions in time—can be good indicators of the need for a perfect-tense verb in a sentence.

• By the time the senator finished (past) his speech, the audience had lost (past perfect) interest.
• By the time the senator finishes (present: habitual action) his speech, the audience has lost (present perfect) interest.
• By the time the senator finishes (present: suggesting future time) his speech, the audience will have lost (future perfect) interest.
• After everyone had finished (past perfect) the main course, we offered (past) our guests dessert.
• After everyone has finished (present perfect) the main course, we offer (present: habitual action) our guests dessert.
• After everyone has finished (present perfect) the main course, we will offer (future: specific one-time action) our guests dessert.
• Long before the sun rose (past), the birds had arrived (past perfect) at the feeder.
• Long before the sun rises (present: habitual action), the birds have arrived (present perfect) at the feeder.
• Long before the sun rises (present: suggesting future time), the birds will have arrived (future perfect) at the feeder.

Sample paragraphs

The main tense in this first sample is past. Tense shifts are inappropriate and are indicated in bold .

(adapted from a narrative)

Inappropriate shifts from past to present, such as those that appear in the above paragraph, are sometimes hard to resist. The writer becomes drawn into the narrative and begins to relive the event as an ongoing experience. The inconsistency should be avoided, however. In the sample, will should be would , and rise should be rose .

The main tense in this second sample is present. Tense shifts—all appropriate—are indicated in bold.

(adapted from an article in the magazine Wilderness )

This writer uses the present tense to describe the appearance of a dragonfly on a particular July morning. However, both past and future tenses are called for when she refers to its previous actions and to its predictable activity in the future.

Click here for exercises on verb tense.

Back to the basics: past, present, and future tenses in English

As an English teacher and literature major in college, I am passionate about the English language. I am a self-identified stickler for grammar, and I will correct a text to a friend if I notice it lacks an apostrophe or contains an erroneous punctuation mark.

But by no means am I an expert on everything there is to know about English. In fact, I have realized how little I knew when I started teaching English as a Foreign Language this year at an Italian high school in Italy. I teach across a range of ages and abilities, but studying grammar is common among all classes. And I have been asked many times to prepare exercises or speaking activities for topics like the present perfect versus past simple, or contexts that call for the present continuous.

Until now, I never learned what the present perfect was, nor did I know the difference between that and past simple or when to use the present continuous. Of course, implicitly, I know all of these rules from learning English as my first language and from studying it in school. But never had I learned the labels for these verb tenses or the explicit reasons for differentiating between one and another. Now, in teaching these aspects of the English language, I am also relearning them from the perspective of my non-native English-speaking students. What follows is a summary of the basics of each English verb tense as non-native speakers commonly study them. 

Write, Wrote, Written: The Three Basics

Non-native speakers of English often learn verbs in three basic parts: the present , the past , and the past participle . With these three parts, one can form any combination of tense.

For example:

I write (Present)

I wrote (Past)

I have written (Present perfect)

I had already written (Past perfect)

I will write (Future)

I would write (Conditional) 

With the above verb to write : the present is write, the past is wrote , and the past participle is written .

Below is a summary of how to form and when to use each verb tense in English.

The present tense in English is fairly simple. It comprises the verb as it appears in the infinitive (the "to" form, as we learn it in foreign languages). 

Unlike in Romance languages, English does not involve a different conjugation for each subject pronoun. There is only one variation that takes place in the third person singular form: 

For the verb to write :

He/She/One/It write s

We use the simple present to describe a current condition or action in general.

I write for the New York Times.

I am a teacher.

We like ice cream.

She rides her bike to school every day.

Present Continuous or Present Progressive

The present continuous could be referred to as the "- ing " form of a present tense verb. It is used to describe an action that takes place in the present and is still ongoing at the moment it is being described.

It is formed with the subject + form of to be  + present participle .

NB: The present participle is the stem of the verb + -ing . The stem is the part of the verb that is common to all other variant forms of that verb (the infinitive, the present, the past participle, etc). The stem of the verb to write is writ , to which we add -ing for present continuous.

I am writing a blog post .

She is reading her favorite book.

We are playing a board game.

They are laughing at the TV show.

It is not raining right now.

The above examples describe actions that are happening in the moment they are being described. The present continuous may also describe a general condition in the present that is not specific to the current moment:

I am working as a teacher.

This week in science class, he is studying genetics.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, the present continuous can also describe a future action, although the verb itself is in the present form, as in:

I am travelling to Sicily next week.

My friends are getting married in three months.

The past tense has several different degrees of past. 

Simple Past

The simplest one is called just that: simple past. It consists of the past tense form of the verb. In the case of the verb to write , the past is wrote : 

He/She/One/It wrote

In the past, the verb does not change depending on the subject it follows.

Regular verbs form the past tense by adding -ed to the end of the present tense form, as in play à played, talk à talked, work à worked .

In the case of a regular verb like to talk , the past is the same as the past participle.

à talk (present), talked (past), talked (past participle).  

To write is an irregular verb because the past is not formed by adding - ed to write (it is not writed ), but it is more conducive to showing the difference among the three basic verb parts.

Past Continuous

The past continuous is what other languages, like French, Spanish, and Italian, call the imperfect. It indicates an action that took place in the past over a continuing period of time, an unfinished action. 

I was watching a movie.

We were driving to practice.

The kids were studying for their test.  

Usually the past continuous is used soon before or soon after the past simple. In this scenario, it describes a continuing action in the past that was happening before another finished action happened. 

I was watching a movie when you texted me .

We were driving to practice when the coach called to cancel it.

When the teacher entered the room, the kids were studying for their test.

In the above scenarios, the action following the word when is in the past simple: it is a complete action that happened in the past. The past continuous describes the preceding situation, the condition that was ongoing up until the point of the completed action.

Present Perfect

The name may sound misleading, but the present perfect tense is used to talk about something that started in the past and continues to be true in the present.

It is formed with the present form of to have + past participle of the action verb:

I have seen this movie twice already.

So far this week, I have eaten pasta three times.

She has played piano since she was a child.

We have lived in Boston for five years.

We have not yet ordered our food.  

In this last example, the present perfect refers to something that is not yet complete, but the fact that it is not complete applies to the recent past in addition to the present moment. 

Follow this link from Education First for a more extensive list of situations in which we use the present perfect.

Present Perfect Continuous

There is a subtle but distinct difference between the present perfect and the present perfect continuous. The present perfect continuous is used in many of the same situations as the present perfect, but its function is to emphasize the process or the ongoing progress of the action and not just its end result.

It is formed with has or have + been + present participle :

I have been waiting for three hours.

She has been hanging up posters all over town.

They have been trying to get in touch with you.  

In some cases, there is little difference between present perfect and present perfect continuous:

We have lived in Boston for five years. vs. We have been living in Boston for five years.  

The effective meaning is the same, but the latter (present perfect continuous) underscores the fact that we have lived in Boston for five years already and we are still living in Boston now.  

Past Perfect

Compared to the simple past, which describes a completed action at a specified time in the past, the past perfect describes a completed action that is even more in the past. In other words, the past perfect happens before the simple past , but both are already completed actions that happened in the past.

Form the past perfect by using had + past participle :

I had met her before.

The rain had stopped.

The first day of school had finally arrived.  

Almost always, the past perfect is used in connection with simple past. For example:

I realized I had met her before. ( I realized = simple past; I had met her = past perfect).

à  Some time in the past, I realized that another time farther in the past (even longer ago) I had met her.

The rain had stopped by the time the game started.

à When the game started (at a specific time in the past), at some point before that time , the rain had already stopped (farther in the past).

Past Perfect Continuous

Much like the present perfect and present perfect continuous, the past perfect has a continuous counterpart.

It is formed with had + been + present participle .

They had been taking lessons for six months before they performed their first concert.

We had been planning to go on vacation in July, but we found a better rental in August.

Had you been studying French a long time before you decided to attend a university in France?

Future Perfect

Again, it might sound like an oxymoron, but the future perfect tense is actually a form of the past. It is used to talk about a completed action (past) but at a future point. It describes a time in the future, from which one can look back at an action that, at that point will already be complete.

It is formed with the future will + have + past participle .

By the end of this year abroad, you will have travelled to six different countries.

When you get here, I will have finished my homework.

Once I pass my last exam, I will have completed every level of certification.

Note that in the last two examples, the first verb is in the present, and the second verb is in the future perfect.

Future Perfect Continuous

The future perfect continuous is formed the same way the past and present continuous are formed, but with the future verb:

will + have + been + present participle

By the end of June, I will have been teaching for one whole year.

At midnight, we will have been dancing for five hours straight!  

To talk about things that have not yet happened, use the future tense.

Simple future

The simple future tense has two component parts:

à future of to be ( will ) + present form of the verb 

The future tense refers to actions that have not yet been completed. They will occur at a later point from now.

My brother will pick us up after school.

The waiter will bring the food in a moment.

Will you be able to make it to the party?

I won't go unless you come with me. (I won't = I will not go)

Future Continuous

The future continuous is used for actions that will be completed in the future over some duration of time. 

It is formed with will + be + present participle . 

You will be laughing so hard when you see the new comedy.

How many days will you be staying at our hotel?

In just a week, we'll be sitting by the ocean and sipping iced tea on the beach. (we'll = we will)

This summer, I'll still be working at the ice cream shop. (I'll = I will)

Conditional

There are several different types of the conditional, which I have previously explained in a former blog post . But the one that introduces a new verb form for the purpose of this post is the present conditional, which uses would , to express a hypothetical or uncertain situation. It is formed as an " if "clause, to express what would be the case if a currently not-real scenario became the reality.

If + simple past à would + present verb

If I ran six miles a day, I would get in shape.

If I ate more fruit, I would be healthier.

We would get better grades if we studied more.   

For a comprehensive guide of all verb tenses and combinations thereof, look at the EF verb pages here.

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What the World Has Learned From Past Eclipses

C louds scudded over the small volcanic island of Principe, off the western coast of Africa, on the afternoon of May 29, 1919. Arthur Eddington, director of the Cambridge Observatory in the U.K., waited for the Sun to emerge. The remains of a morning thunderstorm could ruin everything.

The island was about to experience the rare and overwhelming sight of a total solar eclipse. For six minutes, the longest eclipse since 1416, the Moon would completely block the face of the Sun, pulling a curtain of darkness over a thin stripe of Earth. Eddington traveled into the eclipse path to try and prove one of the most consequential ideas of his age: Albert Einstein’s new theory of general relativity.

Eddington, a physicist, was one of the few people at the time who understood the theory, which Einstein proposed in 1915. But many other scientists were stymied by the bizarre idea that gravity is not a mutual attraction, but a warping of spacetime. Light itself would be subject to this warping, too. So an eclipse would be the best way to prove whether the theory was true, because with the Sun’s light blocked by the Moon, astronomers would be able to see whether the Sun’s gravity bent the light of distant stars behind it.

Two teams of astronomers boarded ships steaming from Liverpool, England, in March 1919 to watch the eclipse and take the measure of the stars. Eddington and his team went to Principe, and another team led by Frank Dyson of the Greenwich Observatory went to Sobral, Brazil.

Totality, the complete obscuration of the Sun, would be at 2:13 local time in Principe. Moments before the Moon slid in front of the Sun, the clouds finally began breaking up. For a moment, it was totally clear. Eddington and his group hastily captured images of a star cluster found near the Sun that day, called the Hyades, found in the constellation of Taurus. The astronomers were using the best astronomical technology of the time, photographic plates, which are large exposures taken on glass instead of film. Stars appeared on seven of the plates, and solar “prominences,” filaments of gas streaming from the Sun, appeared on others.

Eddington wanted to stay in Principe to measure the Hyades when there was no eclipse, but a ship workers’ strike made him leave early. Later, Eddington and Dyson both compared the glass plates taken during the eclipse to other glass plates captured of the Hyades in a different part of the sky, when there was no eclipse. On the images from Eddington’s and Dyson’s expeditions, the stars were not aligned. The 40-year-old Einstein was right.

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens,” the New York Times proclaimed when the scientific papers were published. The eclipse was the key to the discovery—as so many solar eclipses before and since have illuminated new findings about our universe.

To understand why Eddington and Dyson traveled such distances to watch the eclipse, we need to talk about gravity.

Since at least the days of Isaac Newton, who wrote in 1687, scientists thought gravity was a simple force of mutual attraction. Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, and that the strength of this attraction is related to the size of the objects and the distances among them. This is mostly true, actually, but it’s a little more nuanced than that.

On much larger scales, like among black holes or galaxy clusters, Newtonian gravity falls short. It also can’t accurately account for the movement of large objects that are close together, such as how the orbit of Mercury is affected by its proximity the Sun.

Albert Einstein’s most consequential breakthrough solved these problems. General relativity holds that gravity is not really an invisible force of mutual attraction, but a distortion. Rather than some kind of mutual tug-of-war, large objects like the Sun and other stars respond relative to each other because the space they are in has been altered. Their mass is so great that they bend the fabric of space and time around themselves.

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This was a weird concept, and many scientists thought Einstein’s ideas and equations were ridiculous. But others thought it sounded reasonable. Einstein and others knew that if the theory was correct, and the fabric of reality is bending around large objects, then light itself would have to follow that bend. The light of a star in the great distance, for instance, would seem to curve around a large object in front of it, nearer to us—like our Sun. But normally, it’s impossible to study stars behind the Sun to measure this effect. Enter an eclipse.

Einstein’s theory gives an equation for how much the Sun’s gravity would displace the images of background stars. Newton’s theory predicts only half that amount of displacement.

Eddington and Dyson measured the Hyades cluster because it contains many stars; the more stars to distort, the better the comparison. Both teams of scientists encountered strange political and natural obstacles in making the discovery, which are chronicled beautifully in the book No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity , by the physicist Daniel Kennefick. But the confirmation of Einstein’s ideas was worth it. Eddington said as much in a letter to his mother: “The one good plate that I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein,” he wrote , “and I think I have got a little confirmation from a second plate.”

The Eddington-Dyson experiments were hardly the first time scientists used eclipses to make profound new discoveries. The idea dates to the beginnings of human civilization.

Careful records of lunar and solar eclipses are one of the greatest legacies of ancient Babylon. Astronomers—or astrologers, really, but the goal was the same—were able to predict both lunar and solar eclipses with impressive accuracy. They worked out what we now call the Saros Cycle, a repeating period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours in which eclipses appear to repeat. One Saros cycle is equal to 223 synodic months, which is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same phase as seen from Earth. They also figured out, though may not have understood it completely, the geometry that enables eclipses to happen.

The path we trace around the Sun is called the ecliptic. Our planet’s axis is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane, which is why we have seasons, and why the other celestial bodies seem to cross the same general path in our sky.

As the Moon goes around Earth, it, too, crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice in a year. The ascending node is where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic. The descending node is where the Moon enters the southern ecliptic. When the Moon crosses a node, a total solar eclipse can happen. Ancient astronomers were aware of these points in the sky, and by the apex of Babylonian civilization, they were very good at predicting when eclipses would occur.

Two and a half millennia later, in 2016, astronomers used these same ancient records to measure the change in the rate at which Earth’s rotation is slowing—which is to say, the amount by which are days are lengthening, over thousands of years.

By the middle of the 19 th century, scientific discoveries came at a frenetic pace, and eclipses powered many of them. In October 1868, two astronomers, Pierre Jules César Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer, separately measured the colors of sunlight during a total eclipse. Each found evidence of an unknown element, indicating a new discovery: Helium, named for the Greek god of the Sun. In another eclipse in 1869, astronomers found convincing evidence of another new element, which they nicknamed coronium—before learning a few decades later that it was not a new element, but highly ionized iron, indicating that the Sun’s atmosphere is exceptionally, bizarrely hot. This oddity led to the prediction, in the 1950s, of a continual outflow that we now call the solar wind.

And during solar eclipses between 1878 and 1908, astronomers searched in vain for a proposed extra planet within the orbit of Mercury. Provisionally named Vulcan, this planet was thought to exist because Newtonian gravity could not fully describe Mercury’s strange orbit. The matter of the innermost planet’s path was settled, finally, in 1915, when Einstein used general relativity equations to explain it.

Many eclipse expeditions were intended to learn something new, or to prove an idea right—or wrong. But many of these discoveries have major practical effects on us. Understanding the Sun, and why its atmosphere gets so hot, can help us predict solar outbursts that could disrupt the power grid and communications satellites. Understanding gravity, at all scales, allows us to know and to navigate the cosmos.

GPS satellites, for instance, provide accurate measurements down to inches on Earth. Relativity equations account for the effects of the Earth’s gravity and the distances between the satellites and their receivers on the ground. Special relativity holds that the clocks on satellites, which experience weaker gravity, seem to run slower than clocks under the stronger force of gravity on Earth. From the point of view of the satellite, Earth clocks seem to run faster. We can use different satellites in different positions, and different ground stations, to accurately triangulate our positions on Earth down to inches. Without those calculations, GPS satellites would be far less precise.

This year, scientists fanned out across North America and in the skies above it will continue the legacy of eclipse science. Scientists from NASA and several universities and other research institutions will study Earth’s atmosphere; the Sun’s atmosphere; the Sun’s magnetic fields; and the Sun’s atmospheric outbursts, called coronal mass ejections.

When you look up at the Sun and Moon on the eclipse , the Moon’s day — or just observe its shadow darkening the ground beneath the clouds, which seems more likely — think about all the discoveries still yet waiting to happen, just behind the shadow of the Moon.

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What Solar Eclipse-Gazing Has Looked Like for the Past 2 Centuries

Millions of people on Monday will continue the tradition of experiencing and capturing solar eclipses, a pursuit that has spawned a lot of unusual gear.

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By Sarah Eckinger

• April 8, 2024

For centuries, people have been clamoring to glimpse solar eclipses. From astronomers with custom-built photographic equipment to groups huddled together with special glasses, this spectacle has captivated the human imagination.

Creating a Permanent Record

In 1860, Warren de la Rue captured what many sources describe as the first photograph of a total solar eclipse . He took it in Rivabellosa, Spain, with an instrument known as the Kew Photoheliograph . This combination of a telescope and camera was specifically built to photograph the sun.

Forty years later, Nevil Maskelyne, a magician and an astronomy enthusiast, filmed a total solar eclipse in North Carolina. The footage was lost, however, and only released in 2019 after it was rediscovered in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives.

Telescopic Vision

For scientists and astronomers, eclipses provide an opportunity not only to view the moon’s umbra and gaze at the sun’s corona, but also to make observations that further their studies. Many observatories, or friendly neighbors with a telescope, also make their instruments available to the public during eclipses.

Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen, Fridtjof Nansen and Sigurd Scott Hansen observing a solar eclipse while on a polar expedition in 1894 .

Women from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and their professor tested out equipment ahead of their eclipse trip (to “catch old Sol in the act,” as the original New York Times article phrased it) to New London, Conn., in 1922.

A group from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania traveled to Yerbaniz, Mexico, in 1923, with telescopes and a 65-foot camera to observe the sun’s corona .

Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, prepared to head to Douglas Hill, Maine, to study an eclipse in 1932. An entire freight car was required to transport the institution’s equipment.

Visitors viewed a solar eclipse at an observatory in Berlin in the mid-1930s.

A family set up two telescopes in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1963. The two children placed stones on the base to help steady them.

An astronomer examined equipment for an eclipse in a desert in Mauritania in June 1973. We credit the hot climate for his choice in outfit.

Indirect Light

If you see people on Monday sprinting to your local park clutching pieces of paper, or with a cardboard box of their head, they are probably planning to reflect or project images of the solar eclipse onto a surface.

Cynthia Goulakos demonstrated a safe way to view a solar eclipse , with two pieces of cardboard to create a reflection of the shadowed sun, in Lowell, Mass., in 1970.

Another popular option is to create a pinhole camera. This woman did so in Central Park in 1963 by using a paper cup with a small hole in the bottom and a twin-lens reflex camera.

Amateur astronomers viewed a partial eclipse, projected from a telescope onto a screen, from atop the Empire State Building in 1967 .

Back in Central Park, in 1970, Irving Schwartz and his wife reflected an eclipse onto a piece of paper by holding binoculars on the edge of a garbage basket.

Children in Denver in 1979 used cardboard viewing boxes and pieces of paper with small pinholes to view projections of a partial eclipse.

A crowd gathered around a basin of water dyed with dark ink, waiting for the reflection of a solar eclipse to appear, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

Staring at the Sun (or, How Not to Burn Your Retinas)

Eclipse-gazers have used different methods to protect their eyes throughout the years, some safer than others .

In 1927, women gathered at a window in a building in London to watch a total eclipse through smoked glass. This was popularized in France in the 1700s , but fell out of favor when physicians began writing papers on children whose vision was damaged.

Another trend was to use a strip of exposed photographic film, as seen below in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 and in Turkana, Kenya, in 1963. This method, which was even suggested by The Times in 1979 , has since been declared unsafe.

Solar eclipse glasses are a popular and safe way to view the event ( if you use models compliant with international safety standards ). Over the years there have been various styles, including these large hand-held options found in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1979.

Parents and children watched a partial eclipse through their eclipse glasses in Tokyo in 1981.

Slimmer, more colorful options were used in Nabusimake, Colombia, in 1998.

In France in 1999.

And in Iran and England in 1999.

And the best way to see the eclipse? With family and friends at a watch party, like this one in Isalo National Park in Madagascar in 2001.