Table of Contents
The past simple
Introduction
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We booked the room online yesterday. |
Construction
Regular verbs in the past simple end with 'ed'. For most verbs, we simply add 'ed' after the bare infinitive. Affirmative: Subject + bare infinitive + ed I worked yesterday. Negative: subject + 'did' + 'not' + bare infinitive I didn't work yesterday. Interrogative: Did + subject + bare infinitive Did you work yesterday?
Irregular verbs
There are many irregular verbs, including some of the most common verbs in the English language. Some of the most useful are:
| Do | Be | Go | Have |
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I did You did He did She did It did We did They did
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I was You were He was She was It was We were They were |
I went You went He went She went It went We went They went |
I had You had He had She had It had We had They had |
Uses
| The most common uses are: | Examples |
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For completed actions in the past |
He worked yesterday.
Did you go to work yesterday? No, I had the day off.
I went to school when I was young.
We travelled around Italy in June.
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For a past state |
My grandparents loved each other very much.
She knew him before he joined the company.
Was John a teacher before he became a consultant?
It wasn't noisy here before the new road was built.
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For past habits |
I cycled to school every day.
They closed the factory for two weeks each summer.
We didn't go to the sea for our holidays. We went to the mountains.
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For historical events |
Louis XII was king of France.
Henry VIII had six wives.
Dinosaurs lived on earth.
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Time phrases
When using the past tense, time phrases are often used to define when the action happened.
Examples
| Specific | General |
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yesterday on Monday last night in June last week at 10 o'clock last month this morning last year 5 minutes ago on 21st January 2001 in 1925
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a few days/weeks ago earlier today the other evening before lunch many years ago a long time ago when I was young when I was living in Africa
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Examples
We once had a neighbour called Xavier. He washed his car every Sunday and fixed any problems. He had a son. He helped his father. On Friday afternoons, he did the shopping and he watched TV in the evenings.
What did you do at the weekend? I went to visit my parents.
Did you stay all weekend? No I didn't. We just had Sunday lunch but I didn't do much else. How about you?
I bought this really big melon. They were on offer in Tesco's.
Did they have any peaches? I didn't see any.
Pronunciation of past tense regular verbs
In the past simple, all regular verbs end in -ed but the pronunciation is not the same for all of them. This depends on the SOUND of the last letter of the infinitive. There are three different ways to pronounce the end of the verbs.
For verbs ending in -ed preceded by /t/ or /d/ This is the only ending that is pronounced as an extra syllable on the end of the words. ' d' ending. /d/ For verbs ending in -ed preceded by a voiced consonant [b, g, v, z, , l, m, n , etc.] or a vowel This not pronounced as an extra syllable. The 'e' is silent. 't' ending. /t/ For verbs ending in -ed preceded by a voiceless consonant [p, k, f, s, etc.] This is not pronounced as an extra syllable. The 'e' is silent. Examples needed seated posted wanted created visited handed lived enjoyed listened applied telephoned played pleased offered stopped wished knocked washed watched helped cooked
