THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE[engLish]

THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE

The simple past is a tense used to describe complete actions or events that took place in some time before now. The time can be specified by using some adverbs, for example: yesterday, last night, last week, last month, last year, and so on. It is important to keep in mind that the formation of this tense is different if you are working with the verb to be or if you are working with the rest of the verbs. Let's begin then with the verb To Be. Although the past form of the verbs is the same for all the personal pronouns, the verb "to be" has two forms:

* I was
* he was
* she was
* it was
* you were
* they were
* we were
* you were

WAS for I, he, she, it and WERE for we, you , they. Look at these examples:

* She was worried about her grades in school.
* Maurice and Martha were in Washington last week.
* Joseph was very tired, but now he is fine.
* Last christmas we were in my grandma's house.
* Yesterday they were very busy.

Remember that the past tense of "to be" follows the same structure we explained before. So, when you want to turn these sentences into questions you have to do the same changes you do for the present tense. Look:

* Was she worried about her grades in school?
* Were Maurice and Martha in Washington last week?
* Was Joseph was very tired?
* Were they in your grandma's house last christmas?
* Were they very busy yesterday?

In the same way, if you want to change an affirmative sentence to negative you just have to add the negative particle not after the verb "to be":

* She was not worried about her grades in school.
* Maurice and Martha were not in Washington last week.
* Joseph was not very tired, but now he is.
* Last christmas we were not in my grandma's house.
* Yesterday they were not very busy.

Remember that the contractions of the verb "to be" and the negative word not are common in spoken language.
The past tense for the other verbs in English is a little more complicated. Some are regular verbs and follow one rule. Others are irregular verbs and their forms are very different from the infinitive.
It requires that you learn the past form of every verb.

Let's begin with the regular verbs:

These verbs form their past by adding the particle -ed at the end of the infinitive. For example:

* want -------> wanted
* copy -------> copied
* sign -------> signed
* fade -------> faded
* watch -------> watched

Now, see the verbs in context:

* My mother and her sister wanted to go shopping yesterday.
* She copied many things and now she does not have money.
* You signed a contract with a very important company. Congratulations!
* The snow flakes faded slowly.
* My family always watched "The Wonder Years".

You already know that to make interrogative sentences we need an auxiliary. In the present we used DO and DOES For the past tense we use DID:

* Did your mother and her sister want to go shopping yesterday?
* Did she copy many things and now she does not have money?
* Did you sign a contract with a very important company? Congratulations!
* Did the snow flakes fade slowly?
* Did your family always watch "The Wonder Years"?

Just apply the structure of the present tense to the past to form negative sentences:

* My mother and her sister did not want to go shopping yesterday.
* She did not copy many things and now she has money.
* You did not sign a contract with a dishonest company. Congratulations!
* The snow flakes did not fade slowly.
* My family did not watch "Pokemon".

Do not forget that when you use an auxiliary the main verb remains unchanged.
It is time now to see what happens to irregular verbs. Basically, they follow the same structure of the regular verbs, but you cannot just add -ed to the infinitive. These verbs have their own form for the past:

* write -------> wrote
* see -------> saw
* bring -------> brought
* take -------> took
* sing -------> sang
* come -------> came

» The Past Continuous Tense
» Past Perfect Tense
» Past Perfect Continuous Tense