Simple Past Tense

FUNCTIONS OF THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE

The simple past is use to talk about a completed action in a time before now. Duration is not important. The time of theaction can be in the recent past or the distant past.

EXAMPLES

• John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
• My father died last year.
• He lived in Fiji in 1976.
• We crossed the Channel yesterday.

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated withcertain past time expressions

• frequency: often, sometimes, always
  I sometimes walked home at lunchtime.
  I often brought my lunch to school.
• a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
  We saw a good film last week.
  Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
  She finished her work atseven o'clock
  I went to the theatre last night
• an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago People lived in caves a long time ago.
• She played the piano when she was a child.

Note: theword ago is a useful way of expressing the distanceinto the past. It is placed after the period of time: a week ago, three years ago, aminute ago.

Be Careful: The simple past in English maylook like a tense in your own language, but the meaning may be different.

FORMING THE SIMPLEPAST TENSE

PATTERNS OF SIMPLEPAST TENSE FOR REGULAR VERBS

TO WALK

SIMPLE PAST TENSE OFTO BE, TO HAVE, TO DO

NOTES ONAFFIRMATIVE, NEGATIVE, & INTERROGATIVE FORMS

AFFIRMATIVE

The affirmative of the simple past tense issimple.

• I was in Japan last year
• She had a headache yesterday.
• We did our homework last night.

NEGATIVE ANDINTERROGATIVE

For the negative and interrogative simplepast form of "do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "do", e.g. We didn't do our homework last night.
The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed usingthe auxiliary "do", but sometimes by simply adding not or the contraction "n't".

The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses theauxiliary "do".

EXAMPLES

• They weren't in Rio last summer.
• We didn't have any money.
• We didn't have time to visit the Eiffel Tower.
• We didn't do our exercises this morning.
• Were they in Iceland last January?
• Did you have a bicycle when you were young?
• Did you do much climbing in Switzerland?

Note: Forthe negative and interrogative form of all verbs in the simple past, always use theauxiliary 'did''.

SIMPLE PAST,IRREGULAR VERBS

Some verbs are irregular in the simple past.Here are the most common ones.

TO GO