SIMPLE PAST TENSE
The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.
Examples:
- We crossed the Channel yesterday.
- John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
- My father died last year.
- He lived in Fiji in 1976.
You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions:
- Frequency: often, sometimes, always
- A definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
- An indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago.
FORMING THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE
AFFIRMATIVE
The affirmative of the simple past tense is simple.
I was in Japan last year
She had a headache yesterday.
We did our homework last night.
NEGATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE
For the negative and interrogative simple past form of "to do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "did". Example:
We didn't do our homework last night.
The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed using the auxiliary "did", but sometimes by simply adding not or the contraction "n't".
The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses the auxiliary "did".
Examples
They weren't in Rio last summer.
We didn't have any money.
Were they in Iceland last January?
Did you have a bicycle when you were young?
Did you do much climbing in Switzerland?
Simple past, irregular verbs
Some verbs are irregular in the simple past. Here, you can access to the list of all the irregular verbs in English.
Activity
In this link you can access a series of activities that will allow you to practice and improve your skills with respect to what you learned previously.
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