Table of Contents

The past simple

Introduction

Image

 

 

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

                             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

 

I did

You did

He did

She did

It did

We did

They did

 

 

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

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

For historical events

 

Louis XII was king of France.

 

Henry VIII had six wives.

 

Dinosaurs lived on earth.

 

 


Time phrases

When using the past tense, time phrases are often used to define when the action happened.

 

Examples

 

Specific

General

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

Examples

 Image

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.

 Image

 

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.

 

 

' id' ending.            /Id/

 

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