The Past Simple Tense

 The past simple tense:

The past simple tense 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.
Ex: we watched this movie yesterday.
Ex: They played football last Saturday.
Ex: It rained all day yesterday.
 Form of the past simple:
 The regular verbs → often ends in (-ed)
Ex: Mr. Brown died ten years ago.
We visited them last weekend.
We invited them to our party, but they decided not to come.
She passed her exam because she studied very hard.
 The irregular verbs → do NOT end in (-ed), you have to memorize them.
Ex: leave → left
We all left the party at 11:00.
Ex: go → went
Last month I went to Alexandria to visit a friend of mine.
o Affirmative:

Subject +verb (-ed)

He, she, it, I, you, we, they Played

o Negative:

Subject +did not (didn’t) +the base form of the verb

He, she, it, I, you, we, they did not (didn’t) Play

Ex: We didn’t invite her to the party.

o Interrogative:

Did +Subject +the base form of the verb?

Did He, she, it, I, you, we, they Play?

Ex: Did you go out last night?

Ex: When did Mr. Brown die?

 The past simple tense of verbs (be, have, do)

Be have do

You, we, they were had did

I, he, she, it was had did

 Note: we don’t use did with the verb (be):

Why were you so angry yesterday?
Was Mark at work last Monday?
They weren’t able to come to the party last night.
Exercise:

1. Read the following sentences about the present then write them in the past.
Example: Carol usually gets up at 7:30 → Yesterday she got up at 7:30.
a) Carol usually wakes up early.
Yesterday morning ______________________.
b) Carol usually walks to work.
Yesterday __________________________.
c) Carol is usually late for work.
Yesterday _________________________.
d) Carol usually has a sandwich for lunch.
Yesterday ____________________________.
e) Carol usually goes out in the evening.
Yesterday evening _____________________.

2. Put the verbs into the correct form.

a) I was hungry, so I (buy) ___________ something to eat at the store.
b) Tom’s father (teach) _____________ him how to drive when he was 17.
c) Don (fall) __________ down the stairs this morning and (hurt) ________ his leg.
d) We needed some money, so we (sell) _________ our car.
e) Ann (spend) _________ a lot of money yesterday. She (buy) _______ a dress that
(cost) __________ $80.