The Past Simple- Unit 1(Ticket to English1)

The Past Simple

The past simple is the most common way of talking about past events or states which have finished. It is often used with past time references (e.g. yesterday, two years ago).

Forms:

With most verbs the past tense is formed by adding -ed:

infinitive	Regular past
Call  Like  Work  Like Want Play	Called Liked Worked Liked Wanted Played

But there are a lot of irregular past tenses in English. Here are the most common irregular verbs in English, with their past tenses:

infinitive	irregular past
be begin break bring buy build choose come cost cut do draw drive eat feel find get give go have hear hold keep know leave lead let lie lose make mean meet pay put run say sell send set sit speak spend stand take teach tell think understand wear win write	was/were began broke brought bought built chose came cost cut did drew drove ate felt found got gave went had heard held kept knew left led let lay lost made meant met paid put ran said sold sent set sat spoke spent stood took taught told thought understood wore won wrote

Use:

We use the past tense to talk about:

something that happened once in the past:

I met my best friend in 2014.
We went to France for our holidays.
Ahmed and Karim got home very late last night:

something that happened again and again in the past:

When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day.
We swam a lot while we were on holiday.
They always enjoyed visiting their friends.

 something that was true for some time in the past:

I lived abroad for eight years.
He enjoyed being a student.
He played a lot of soccer when he was younger.

we often use phrases with ago with the past tense:

I met my friend a long time ago.

Questions and negatives

We use did to make questions with the past tense:

When did you meet your best friend?
Where did you go for your holidays?
Did he play tennis when he was younger?
Did you live abroad?

We use didn’t (did not) to make negatives with the past tense:

They didn’t go to France this year.
We didn’t get home until very late last night.
I didn’t see you yesterday.