Simple Past Tense

Simple Past Tense

What did you do yesterday?

The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now.

The simple past tense shows that you are talking about something that has already happened

For example

I walked to the super market yesterday

How to Formulate the Simple Past?

• For regular verbs, add -ed to the root form of the verb (or just -d if the root form already ends in an e)

• For other irregular verbs, including the verb to be, the simple past forms are more erratic

With most verbs, the past tense is formed by adding –ed:

• Call --> Called

• Work --> Worked

Multiple Choice

Ali ..... a hula hoop contest yesterday.

• Enter

• Entering

• Entered

• is entering

But there are a lot of irregular past tense forms in English. Here are the most common irregular verbs in English, with their past tense forms:

For example

• be --> was/were

• go --> went

• break --> broke

• Buy --> bought

The past tense of the verb to be is:

• Am / is --> was

• are --> were

You can also use the simple past to talk about a past state of being, such as the way someone felt about something. This is often expressed with the simple past tense of the verb to be and an adjective, noun, or prepositional phrase.

Ali was proud of his hula hoop victory.

Multiple Choice

The contest ..... the highlight of last week.

• is

• was

• are

• were

We use the past tense to talk about:

• Something that happened once in the past

• Something that happened several times in the past

• Something that was true for some time in the past

• We often use expressions with ago with the past simple:

How to Make the Simple Past Negative?

• Fortunately, there is a formula for making simple past verbs negative, and it’s the same for both regular and irregular verbs (except for the verb to be). 

• The formula is did not + [root form of verb]. You can also use the contraction didn’t instead of did not.

For example:

Ali did not brag too much about his hula hoop skills. Ali's girlfriend didn’t see the contest.

For the verb to be, you don’t need the auxiliary did. When the subject of the sentence is singular, use was not or wasn’t. When the subject is plural, use were not or weren’t.

For example:

The third-place winner was not as happy as Ali. The fourth-place winner wasn’t happy at all. The onlookers were not ready to leave after the contest ended. The contestants weren’t ready to leave either.

How to Ask a Question:

• The formula for asking a question in the simple past tense is did + [subject] + [root form of verb].

• When asking a question with the verb to be, you don’t need the auxiliary did. The formula is was/were + [subject].

Examples:

• Did Ali win the gold medal or the silver medal?

• Was Ali in a good mood after the contest?