Simple Past

What is the simple past tense?

This section of English Dose will present the simple past tense:

• its form
• and its use.

The simple past tense

Before you continue the lesson read the following passage and try to see how the verbs are formed and used.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian musician and composer. He lived from 1756 to 1791. He started composing at the age of five years old and wrote more than 600 pieces of music. He was only 35 years old when he died. The verbs "was, lived, started, wrote, died" are in the simple past tense. Notice that: lived, started, and died are regular past forms. was and wrote are irregular past forms.

The simple past of regular verbs

We form the simple past of regular verbs by adding -ed to the verb.

Verb + ed

For example, the verbs "lived, started, and died" are regular past forms. The rule is the following:

Verb + ed

Examples:

The infinitive	The simple past
live	lived
start	started
die	died
visit	visited
play	played
watch	watched
phone	phoned
marry	married

Irregular verbs

A verb whose conjugation does not follow the -ed rule above is called an irregular verb. The simple past of irregular verbs has different forms.

For example, The verbs "was, wrote" are irregular past forms. "Was" is the simple past of "to be"; "wrote" is the simple past of "write".

There is no rule for these verbs. You should learn them by heart.

The infinitive	The simple past
be	was/were
come	came
do	did
drive	drove
give	gave
go	went
meet	met
run	ran
see	saw
speak	spoke
swim	swam
write	wrote
write	wrote

As you can see, we can not predict the simple past forms of these verbs. They are irregular. You should learn them by heart. 

The forms of the simple past

1. The Affirmative form of the simple past:

The simple past takes the following forms in the affirmative:

• Regular verbs (e.g., watch, play, visit, etc.):
  Add -ed to the verb → watched, played, visited
• Irregular verbs (e.g., write, do, speak, etc.):
  Irregular verbs have various forms and have to be learned by heart.
  - write → wrote
  - do → did
  - speak → spoke

I, you, he, she, it, we, they	played tennis last Sunday.
	watched the movie last Saturday.
	wrote the report two days ago.
	did the homework yesterday evening.

Examples:

• I played tennis with my friends yesterday.
• I finished lunch and I did my homework.

2. The interrogative form of the simple past

To ask questions, the simple past takes the following form:

AUXILARY VERB "DID" + SUBJECT + BASE FORM OF THE VERB

Examples:

Did	I, you, he, she, it, we, they	play tennis?
		watch the movie?
		write the report?
		do the homework?

Examples:

• Did you play basketball yesterday?
• Did you visit Paris last holiday?
• Did you watch television?
• Did you go to the gym?
• Did you do the homework?

The negative form of the simple past

The rule for the negative forms of the simple past is as follows:

Did not/didn't + base form of the verb

Examples:

I, you, he, she, it, we, they	did not/didn't	play tennis last Sunday.
		watch the movie last Saturday.
		write the report two days ago.
		do the homework yesterday evening.

• I didn't like the food served at the wedding party last Saturday.
• I didn't eat it.

The use of the simple past

The simple past is used principally to describe events in the past, but it also has some other uses. Here are the main uses of the simple past.

1. Finished events in the past

• William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
• Christoph Columbus discovered America in 1492.
• He kissed her and left.

2. Past habitual action

• I visited them every day for a year.
• I drove to work every day when I worked with that company.

3. Events that were true for some time in the past

• He lived in Paris for 20 years.
• They talked on the phone for ten minutes.

Remember:

didn't is the short form of did not. You can say either:

• I did not play basketball, or
• I didn't play basketball.