Past Simple
#grammar Past simple is used to communicate an action that didn’t happen, happened once or happened several times in the past.
It is often used to give details about an event in the news or in a story. Regular verbs in positive sentences in past simple use the suffix -ed.
Positive
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Negative
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Question
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They scored the winning goal.
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They didn’t score the winning goal.
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Did they score the winning goal?
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He ordered a pizza.
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He didn’t order a pizza.
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Did he order a pizza?
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We asked her to move her car.
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We didn’t ask her to move her car.
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Did you ask her to move her car?
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In the negative form, we use the auxiliary verb do in its past form did with the negative not. This can be shortened to didn’t. We then use the bare infinitive of the main verb.
Negative: didn’t + bare infinitive
(without to)
For questions the auxiliary verb did comes before the pronoun.
Question: did + pronoun + bare
infinitive (without to)
There are three important spelling rules to remember when using regular verbs with -ed.
1
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With verbs ending in e, add -d. For example, the
verb score changes to scored.
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2
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With some verbs ending in a short, hard vowel sound or that end in
the letter L after a vowel, the last letter is doubled. For example, the verb
admit changes to admitted, and the verb travel changes
to travelled.
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3
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With verbs ending in -y, the letter y changes to i.
For example, the verb carry changes to carried.
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However, there are many irregular verbs that do not follow this pattern and must be learnt individually. One of the most commonly used and most important is the verb to be. The verb to be is unusual because it can be used to make negatives and question forms without an auxiliary verb.
Positive
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Negative
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Question
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She was happy.
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She wasn’t happy.
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Was she happy?
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They were late to the party.
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They weren’t late to the party.
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Were they late to the party?
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We were impressed.
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We weren’t impressed.
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Were you impressed?
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Sentences in past simple can include a time marker when necessary.
Mr Smith broke his arm last week.
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I went on holiday last year.
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She flew to Japan yesterday.
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Use past simple to report several actions that happened in sequence
He came in, slammed the door and threw his keys
on the table.
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or to report an action that happened in the middle of another action.
The children were coming in from the playground when the alarm sounded.
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Past simple also appears in the first clause of second conditional to talk about hypothetical situations that are unlikely to happen:
If
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I
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won
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the lottery
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,
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I would
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buy a house
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he
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lived
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In Australia
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he would
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be better off
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she
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went
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on holiday
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she would
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go sightseeing
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we
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moved
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to Canada
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we would
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live near the mountains
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they
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had
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children
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they would
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take them to the park
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Exercise 1: Use the words to make sentences in past simple
1. dog / run / street
2. make / she / a sandwich.
3. they / the shopping / carry.
4. be / it / yesterday / cold.
5. he / not / holiday / last year / go
Exercise 2: Use the words to write questions in past simple
6. you / out / at the weekend / go
7. visit / she / family
8. good time / have / they
9. be / good / film
10. car / left / turn
Write your answers in the comments
Sources
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/past-simple
Swan, M. (2005) Practical English Usage (3rd Edition): OUP: Oxford
