1. Form
To make the simple past tense, we use:
- past form
or - auxiliary did + base form
Here you can see examples of the past form and base form for irregular verbs and regular verbs:
| V1 base |
V2 past |
V3 past participle |
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| regular verb | work explode like |
worked exploded liked |
worked exploded liked |
The past form for all regular verbs ends in -ed. |
| irregular verb | go see sing |
went saw sang |
gone seen sung |
The past form for irregular verbs is variable. You need to learn it by heart. |
| You do not need the past participle form to make the simple past tense. It is shown here for completeness only. | ||||
The structure for positive sentences in the simple past tense is:
| subject | + | main verb |
| past |
The structure for negative sentences in the simple past tense is:
| subject | + | auxiliary verb | + | not | + | main verb |
| did | base |
The structure for question sentences in the simple past tense is:
| auxiliary verb | + | subject | + | main verb |
| did | base |
The auxiliary verb did is not conjugated. It is the same for all persons (I did, you did, he did etc). And the base form and past form do not change. Look at these examples with the main verbs go and work:
| subject | auxiliary verb | main verb | |||
| + | I | went | to school. | ||
| You | worked | very hard. | |||
| - | She | did | not | go | with me. |
| We | did | not | work | yesterday. | |
| ? | Did | you | go | to London? | |
| Did | they | work | at home? |
The verb to be is different. We conjugate the verb to be (I was, you were, he/she/it was, we were, they were); and we do not use an auxiliary for negative and question sentences. To make a question, we exchange the subject and verb. Look at these examples:
| subject | main verb | |||
| + | I, he/she/it | was | here. | |
| You, we, they | were | in London. | ||
| - | I, he/she/it | was | not | there. |
| You, we, they | were | not | happy. | |
| ? | Was | I, he/she/it | right? | |
| Were | you, we, they | late? |
2. Usage
We use the simple past tense to talk about an action or a situation – an event – in the past. The event can be short or long.
Here are some short events with the simple past tense:
| The car exploded at 9.30am yesterday. She went to the door. We did not hear the telephone. Did you see that car? |
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| past | present | future | |||
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| The action is in the past. | |||||
Here are some long events with the simple past tense:
| I lived in Bangkok for 10 years. The Jurassic period lasted about 62 million years. We did not sing at the concert. Did you watch TV last night? |
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| past | present | future | |||
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| The action is in the past. | |||||
Notice that it does not matter how long ago the event is: it can be a few minutes or seconds in the past, or millions of years in the past. Also it does not matter how long the event is. It can be a few milliseconds (car explosion) or millions of years (Jurassic period). We use the simple past tense when:
- the event is in the past
- the event is completely finished
- we say (or understand) the time and/or place of the event
