Simple past tense (SVFL)

When you're talking about what's going on here and now, present tense is good. But often you want to say something has happened, and you want to clarify that this is something that occurred in the past. This is what it might sound like, in a story or in a lab report. Michael klev av tåget och kände att det här skulle bli en bra dag. Solen värmde redan trots att det var tidigt på morgonen.

Vi blandade sand och vatten och hällde blandningen genom filtret. Därefter lät vi blandningen stå en stund utan att vi rörde den. All these verbs are stated in the simple past tense. To test if a verb is in the simple past, try putting "yesterday" in front of it. Igår blandade vi Igår hällde vi Igår lät vi det stå Igår rörde vi den inte Simple past is the tense you use in Swedish, when recounting something that happened in past time.

Let's add a timeline to make it clearer. Simple past is in your past, but it is the now inside the story. This is where things happen that bring the story forward. Now let's make it a bit more advanced. Listen!

Vi hade redan förberett en tratt med filterpapper som vi hade spänt fast över en behållare. Compare the tense in this last sentence to the previous part of the text. Hade förberett Hade spänt How are these events different in time? The last sentence tells us about what is passed time inside the story. We are in simple past tense, and we look even further back into the past.

This is the past perfect tense. You recognise it by this auxiliary verb here. There. We have simple past, which is the tense in which the story plays out. And we have past perfect, telling us about the past inside the story.

Are you following so far? Let's do one more tense. Can you guess which one? Yes, we are going to talk about the future inside the story. Nu skulle vattnet bli så rent att vi skulle kunna dricka det.

This is the past's future. The tense for the future in the past. It is a bit like watching a science fiction film from 1999 - the future as it appeared back then. Now you are obviously wondering what happened to Michael. Well, this is what happened as he stepped off the train.

Michael kände att det här skulle bli en bra dag. Solen värmde redan trots att det var tidigt på morgonen. Han hade glömt sitt busskort, och promenerade därför upp längs Storgatan. Som tur var hade han valt sina skönaste skor. Snart skulle han besöka sitt favoritmuseum, och han skulle äntligen få träffa Lina igen.

Pause the video and see if you can pick out which part of the text is written in the story's now (simple past tense), the story's past (past perfect), and the story's future (future in the past). Here you have them: Simple past. Past perfect. Future in the past. När eleverna hade sett färdigt filmen om dåtid, skrev de sina egna berättelser.

Eleverna hade förberett sig väl och snart skulle alla kunna visa en text med exempel på tre olika tempus.