Past Simple
Past simple tense is one of the most exciting and important tenses in English. We often use it to talk about what happened before.
What Is Past Simple Tense?
The past simple (also called simple past, past indefinite, or the preterite) is the tense of nostalgia; the tense that you can use to reminisce and remember. The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now.
Past Simple: Structure
In English, there are two kinds of main verbs. One is the regular verb and the other is the irregular verb. In this article, we will take a look at the structure of each.
Regular Verbs
Regular verbs in English create the past simple and past participle by adding -ed to the base form. If you want to know the spelling rules of adding -ed click here. In English, the simple past of regular verbs is very easy because is the same for all persons.
Past Form | |
---|---|
walk |
walk |
arrive |
arriv |
call |
call |
push |
push |
For example:
I
He
Irregular Verbs
When a verb follows a different pattern when we want to conjugate it, it is called an irregular verbs. In English, for example, verbs such as 'walk,' 'enter,' and 'love' are regular because we can conjugate them by simply adding -ed. On the other hand, we have verbs such as 'eat,' 'put' and 'have' that are called irregular because they do not follow the same pattern.
Past Form | |
---|---|
be | was/were |
have | had |
fall | fell |
buy | bought |
go | went |
choose | chose |
come | came |
Here are the examples:
Phyllis and Oscar
We
'We' and 'Jamie' are our subjects and they are both followed by the past tense of two irregular verbs, 'go' and 'buy.'
Tip!
In past tense, all subjects are followed by the same verb and the verb does not change based on the subject. Pay attention to this example:
I/You/He/She/It/We/They drank some water this morning.
Past Simple: Negation
Just like simple present, the negative form and questions in simple past need an auxiliary verb: 'did.' It is the past form of 'do.' To make negative sentences in past tense, you need to bring the subject at the beginning, followed by 'did not' or its contracted form, 'didn't,' and the main verb.
Tip!
Whenever you have 'did' as an auxiliary verb in your sentence, your main verb can only be used in simple form. Take a look at the following examples:
I
As you can see, the verb after 'didn't' is the base form of the verb.
Julie
'Do' is the main verb and its simple form is used after 'didn't.'
Past Simple: Questions
Much like its simple present partners, 'did' helps in making questions and negative sentences. Both yes/no and wh- question in simple past need 'did.' Making yes/no questions in simple past is simple; you need 'did' at the beginning of your question, followed by the subject and the simple form of your main verb. Take a look at these examples:
Jim
They
You can make wh- questions to ask for information about the past, but you need wh- words first, including what, when, where, who, how, why. In order to make wh- questions, you use a wh- word at the beginning, followed by 'did' and the subject. The main verb comes after, and you should remember that it is always in simple form. Take a look at the following examples:
Peter
Anna
Tip!
'Did' can both be the main verb and the auxiliary verb. Look at these examples:
I
Here, ‘did’ is a main verb indicating that an action was performed.
‘Did’ here is an auxiliary verb and its simple form, ‘do’, is the main verb.
Past Simple: Uses
We use the past tense to talk about:
- Single or Repeated Actions That Happened in the Past
- Actions or States That were True For Some Time in the Past
- Story-telling and Narration
Single or Repeated Actions That Happened in the Past
We use past simple to talk about something that happened once in the past and it's finished. In other words, this tense refers to actions that started happening in the past and were finished in the past as well. Here are some examples:
I
I
We often use the past simple with indefinite time adverb like 'the other day,' 'ages ago,' 'a long time ago.' They all refer to a past time. Look at these examples:
I
People
We use the past simple to talk about something that was true for some time in the past. They are no longer true, but they happened back then. Check out these examples:
I
She
The past simple to talk about finished actions, states, or habits in the past when we know from general knowledge that the time period has finished. They are not unfinished and they are not still happening. Check out these examples:
Shakespeare
Napoleon
We use past simple to talk about something that happened several times in the past. To be clear the action might have happened regularly and habitually in the past. For example:
I often
They always
Actions or States That were True For Some Time in the Past
We use past simple to talk about something that was true for some time in the past. take a look at some examples:
Everybody
I
Story-telling and Narration
We can use the past simple for stories or lists of events. To show the sequence of events for the actions that happened in the past we use the simple past tense.
Sid
Grammatical Notions
Common Time Expressions
- yesterday
- last week/month/etc.
- ago
- in 1974
- when I was young
The Second Conditional
We can also use the past simple to refer to the present or future in hypotheses. We call this structure the second conditional. In this structure, we refer to what would have happened in the present, or the future, if something else happened in the past. Look at the examples:
If I
Subjunctives
We can also use the past simple after words like 'wish' to indicate you do not have something, but you hope you will have someday or to show you want something that you do not have and sometimes you regret it. For example:
I wish I
Subordinating Conjunctions
We use the past simple together with the past continuous to show that the simple past interrupted an action which was in progress in the past. In this case, there should be a while-clause or when-clause in the sentence. Look at the examples:
We were watching TV when Jessica
While she was washing the dishes, he
We use the past simple with finished actions, states, or habits in the past that we have introduced with the present perfect or another tense.
I've seen Sally recently. I
I've traveled a lot. I
Review
Past tense is used a lot in English in different situations. So, it is important to know how to conjugate them:
- Regular Verbs ( the general rule is to add -ed to the basic form of the verb): all subjects + played/didn't play
- Irregular Verbs (there is a change in the form of the verbs): all subjects + ate/didn't eat