Simple Past Tense
The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that
happened or existed before now.
Imagine someone asks what your brother Ahmed did while he was in
town last weekend.
Examples:
Ahmed entered a hula hoop contest.
He won the silver medal.
The simple past tense shows that you are talking about something that
has already happened. Unlike the past continuous tense, which is used
to talk about past events that happened over a period, the simple past
tense emphasizes that the action is finished.
Example:
Ahmed admired the way the light glinted off his silver medal.
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.
Example:
Ahmed was proud of his hula hoop victory.
The contest was the highlight of his week.
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):
Play Played, Type Typed, Listen Listened, Love Loved.
For irregular verbs, things get more complicated. The simple past tense
of some irregular verbs looks exactly like the root form:
Put, Cut, Set, Cost, Hit.
For other irregular verbs, including the verb to be, the simple past forms
are more erratic:
See Saw, Build Built, Go Went, Do Did, Rise Rose, Am/Is/Are
Was/Were.
The simple past tense (except for the verb to be) don’t need to agree in
number with their subjects.
Example:
Ahmed polished his medal. The other winners polished their
medals too.
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(didn’t) + [verb].
Example:
Ahmed did not brag too much about his hula hoop skills. Ahmed’s friend
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.
Example:
The third-place winner was not as happy as Ahmed. 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].
Example:
Did Ahmed win the gold medal or the silver medal? Where did Ahmed go
to celebrate? Did the judges decide fairly, in your opinion?
When asking a question with the verb to be, you don’t need the
auxiliary did. The formula is
was/were + [subject].
Was Ahmed in a good mood after the contest? Were people taking lots
of pictures?
Common Regular Verbs in the Past Tense
Common Irregular Verbs in the Past Tense
Thank you
