Past Simple

for beginners

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 tense is used to describe actions that happened and were completed in the past. It's often formed by adding '-ed' to the base form of regular verbs but has different forms for irregular verbs.

Structure

To form the simple past tense, the past tense form of the verb is used.

To form the past form of a regular verb, add '-ed' to the base form of the verb. For example:

walk → walked
play → played
talk → talked

If the verb already ends in '-e', just add '-d' to the base form of the verb. For example:

love → loved
free → freed
bake → baked

Spelling

If a regular verb with one syllable ends with a vowel + a consonant, double the last consonant before adding '-ed' to make it past tense. For example:

beg → begged
skip → skipped

Using Past Simple to Talk about Past Events

Irregular Verbs

Irregular verbs do not follow the rule mentioned above. These verbs have different forms in the past tense form. For example:

go → went
bring → brought
know → knew
run → ran
have → had
do → did

Past Tense of 'To Be'

'To be' is one of the irregular verbs in English which has two forms for the past tense:

subject	Verb
You/We/They	Were
I/He/She/It	Was

I am a student. → I was a student.

They are kind. → They were kind.

Negation

For negation of past simple verbs, 'did not' or the short form 'didn't' is added before the base form of the verb:

Affirmative	Negative	Short Form
I ran.	I did not run.	I didn't run.
She walked.	She did not walk.	She didn't walk.
They talked.	They did not talk.	They didn't talk.

To negate a 'to be' verb, just add 'not' after its past form (was/were).

Statement	Negation	Short Form
I was happy.	I was not happy.	I wasn't happy.
They were waiters.	They were not waiters.	They weren't waiters.

Questions

To form questions using the past simple form, just use 'did' at the beginning of the sentence and change the past form of the verb to its base form:

Statement	Questions
I ran.	Did I run?
She walked.	Did she walk?

To from the simple past question form of a 'to be' verb, just put the verb at the beginning of the sentence and put the subject after it. For example:

Statement	Question
She was hungry.	Was she hungry?
They were at the mall.	Were they at the mall?

Uses

The past simple tense is used to talk about:

Completed actions in the past

I had dinner at around 8 in the evening last night.

Mary graduated from college in 2013.

Pronunciation of '-ed'

'-ed' endings have three different pronunciations:

/d/: After all vowel sounds and voiced consonants (except /d/) ⇒ walked
/t/: After all voiceless consonants (except /t/) ⇒ pressed
/ɪd/: After /d/ and /t/ ⇒ waited

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What Is Past Simple Tense?
Uses

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