I sang
We can use several tenses to talk about
the past, but the simple past tense i s the one we use most of ten.
In this lesson we look at the structure and use of the simple past tense, foll owed by a quiz to check
your understanding:
How do we make the Simple Past Tense?
To make the simple past tense, we use:
· past form only
or
· auxiliary did + base form
Here you can see examples of the past form and base form for irregular verbs and regular verbs:
V1
base
V2
past
V3
past participle
regular
verb
work
explode
like
worked
exploded
liked
worked
exploded
liked
The past form for all
regular verbs ends in -ed.
irregular
verb
go
see
sing
went
saw
sang
gone
seen
sung
The past form for
irregular verbs is
variable. You need to
learn i t by heart.
You do not need the past participle
form to make the simple past tense. It
is shown here for completeness only.
The structure for positive sentences in the simple past tense is:
subject + main verb
past
The structure for negative sentences in the simple past tense is:
subject + auxiliary verb + not + main verb
did base
The structure for question sentences in the simple past tense is:
auxiliary verb + subject + main verb
did base
The auxiliary verb did i s not conjugated. It is the same for all persons (I did, you did, he did etc). And
the base form and past form do not change. Look at these examples with the main verbs go and work:
subject auxiliary verb main verb
I went to school .
+
You worked very hard.
She did not go with me.
-We did not work yesterday.
Di d you go to London?
?
Di d they work at home?
Exception!The verb to be is different. We conjugate the verb to be (I was, you were, he/she/i t was,
we were, they were); and we do not use an auxiliary for negative and quest i on sentences. To make a
question, we exchange the subject and verb. Look at these examples:
subject main verb
I, he/she/i t was here.
+
You, we, they were in London.
I, he/she/i t was not there.
-You, we, they were not happy.
Was I, he/she/i t right?
?
Were you, we, they late?
How do we use the Simple Past Tense?
We use the simple past tense to talk about an action or a situation—an event—in the past. The event
can be short or long.
Here are some short events with the simple past tense:
The car exploded at 9.30am yesterday.
She went to the door.
We did not hear the telephone.
Did you see that car?
past present future
The action is in the past.
Here are some long events with the simple past tense:
I lived in Bangkok for 10 years.
The Jurassic period lasted about 62 million years.
We did not sing at the concert.
Did you watch TV last night?
past present future
The action is in the past.
Notice that i t does not matter how long ago the event is: i t can be a few minutes or seconds in the past,
or millions of years in the past. Also i t does not matter how long the event is. It can be a few
milliseconds (car explosion) or millions of years (Jurassic period). We use the simple past tense when:
· the event is in the past
· the event is completely finished
· we say (or understand) the time and/or place of the event
In general , if we say the time or place of the
event, we must use the simple past tense; we
cannot use the present perfect.
Here are some more examples:
· I lived in that house when I was young.
· He didn't like the movie.
· What did you eat for dinner?
· John drove to London on Monday.
· Mary did not go to work yesterday.
· Did you play tennis last week?
· I was at work yesterday.
· We were not l ate (for the train).
· Were you angry?
Note that when we tell a story, we usually use the simple past tense. We may use the past continuous
tense to "set the scene", but we almost always use the simple past tense for the action. Look at this
example of the beginning of a story:
"The wind was howling around the hotel and the rain was pouring down. It was col d. The door opened
and James Bond entered. He took off his coat, which was very wet, and ordered a drink at the bar. He
sat down in the corner of the lounge and quietly drank his..."
This page shows the use of the simple past
tense to talk about past events. But note that
there are some other uses for the simple past
tense, for example in conditional or if
sentences.
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