SIMPLE PAST

To: 8th Grade Students

The simple past is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. Duration is not important. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past.

Example:

• John Cabot sailed  to America in 1498.
• My father died  last year.
• He lived in Fiji in 1976.
• We crossed the Channel yesterday.

Use of Simple Past

• action in the past taking place once, never or several times

Example: He visited his parents every weekend.

• actions in the past taking place one after the other

Example: He came in, took off his coat and sat down.

• Action in the past taking place in the middle of another action.

With the Past Continuous to refer to a short action that interrupts a longer one.

Example: When I was having breakfast, the phone suddenly rang.

 

Simple Past: Form

Affirmative sentences:

Subject + verb(in past) + complement

Regular verbs: base +ed
Example: walked, showed, watched, played

Irregular verbs: past tense of the verbs

Example:      write         ->       wrote

                 (present)                (past)

 

 I played soccer yesterday.   

He wrote a book in the 1980s

Questions and negatives sentences

To make negatives sentences, put didn’t (did not) after the subject and use the verb in infinitive without to:

Subject + did not + verb (in infinitive without to) + complement

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

To make questions put did before the subject and use the verb in infinitive without to:

(Wh Question) Did + Subject + verb(in past) + complement + ?

 

When did you meet your wife?
Where did you go for your holidays?
Did she play tennis when she was younger?
Did you live abroad?

But look at these questions:

Who discovered penicillin?
Who wrote Don Quixote?

For more on these questions see question forms

You will often find the past simple used with time expressions such as these:

• Yesterday
• three weeks ago
• last year
• in 2002
• from March to June
• for a long time
• for 6 weeks
• in the 1980s
• in the last century
• in the past