There is a multiplicity of tenses in English, every tense is used to express an event at a given time, each tense is different from the other whether it is used, it is configured and the words on it, so in today’s lesson we’ll talk about one of the most important tense (past simple tense).
Read: The past continuous tense in English
When to use the past simple tense?
1- The past simple tense used to express events that occurred in the past, where they started and ended in the past.
For example:
- I met her in Aswan Two years ago .
2- It also used to express the habit or occurrence in the past.
For example:
- We went to my grandma’s house at the beach every weekend.
How the past simple tense formulated?
When we put the sentence in past, we add (ed) to the verb, and this is only in case of regular verbs.
And now we’ll learn more about the formulation in all cases through the following table.
| Case |
Formation |
examples |
|---|---|---|
| affirmation |
Verb +ed |
-Sara visited that town when she was 5years old . -My daughter finished her homework an hour ago . -Amed missed the plane yesterday. -She started her work when she was young. |
| negative |
Did + not + Inf |
-He didn’t help her mother in home . -Arwa didn’t wear her red dress last night . -My little sister didn’t play tennis yesterday. -My friend did’t know the answer to the teacher’s question. |
| interrogative |
Did+ Subject + Inf + ? |
-Did he go to the park last weekend? -Did you go to the interview at the company? -Did your friend travel to France ? -Did you pass the physics exam? |
We know from the previous table , that we were using the word (Did) to make question in past simple tense , so we can start the question with (Did) or put it after a question tool and then the infinitive of verb.
As in the following examples:
- Did she helped at home ?
⇨ Yes, she did
- Did Salma come early ?
⇨ No, she didn’t .
- What did Yasmeen do yesterday?
⇨ She went to the theater with her friend .
- What did your father do last night ?
⇨ He visited my uncle.
Always remember that (did & didn’t ) must be followed by the infinitive of the verb without any additions.
The pervious rule applied only to regular verbs, but there are irregular verbs that aren’t subject to this rule because the form of these verbs change when it put in past.
For examples:
- Tell /told
⇨ (Salma told her friend the answer to the question )
- think / thought
⇨ (She thought about it deeply )
- Write / wrote
⇨ (Last night i wrote a letter to my fiancée)
- Go /went
⇨ ( My husband went to work late yesterday )
We sometimes use some words with the past simple tense such as:
⇨ Yesterday - ago - in the past - last (Week -year -.....)
For examples:
- In the past , the streets were full of trees and greens .
- Last year i travelled to Maldives with my wife .
- I worked on this project Five years ago .
And now we are done with today' lesson , which we learn about the past simple tense in detail with many examples.
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