Simple Past Tense

How do we use the Simple Past Tense?

We use the simple past tense to talk about an action or a situation - an event - in the past. The event can be short or long.
Here are some short events with the simple past tense:

The car exploded at 9.30am yesterday. She went to the door. We did not hear the telephone. Did you see that car?
past	present	future
The action is in the past.

Here are some long events with the simple past tense:

I lived in Bangkok for 10 years. The Jurassic period lasted about 62 million years. We did not sing at the concert. Did you watch TV last night?
past	present	future
The action is in the past.

Notice that it does not matter how long ago the event is: it can be a few minutes or seconds in the past, or millions of years in the past. Also it does not matter how long the event is. It can be a few milliseconds (car explosion) or millions of years (Jurassic period). We use the simple past tense when:

• the event is in the past
  
• the event is completely finished
  
• we say (or understand) the time and/or place of the event

How do we make the Simple Past Tense?

To make the simple past tense, we use:

• past form only
  or
  
• auxiliary did + base form

Here you can see examples of the past form and base form for irregular verbs and regular verbs:

	V1 base	V2 past	V3 past participle
regular verb	work explode like	worked exploded liked	worked exploded liked	The past form for all regular verbs ends in -ed.
irregular verb	go see sing	went saw sang	gone seen sung	The past form for irregular verbs is variable. You need to learn it by heart.
			You do not need the past participle form to make the simple past tense. It is shown here for completeness only.

The structure for positive sentences in the simple past tense is:

subject	+	main verb
		past

The structure for negative sentences in the simple past tense is:

subject	+	auxiliary verb	+	not	+	main verb
		did				base

The structure for question sentences in the simple past tense is:

auxiliary verb	+	subject	+	main verb
did				base

The auxiliary verb did is not conjugated. It is the same for all persons (I did, you did, he did etc). And the base form and past form do not change. Look at these examples with the main verbs go and work:

	subject	auxiliary verb		main verb
+	I			went	to school.
	You			worked	very hard.
-	She	did	not	go	with me.
	We	did	not	work	yesterday.
?	Did	you		go	to London?
	Did	they		work	at home?

Exception! The verb to be is different. We conjugate the verb to be (I was, you were, he/she/it was, we were, they were); and we do not use an auxiliary for negative and question sentences. To make a question, we exchange the subject and verb. Look at these examples:

	subject	main verb
+	I, he/she/it	was		here.
	You, we, they	were		in London.
-	I, he/she/it	was	not	there.
	You, we, they	were	not	happy.
?	Was	I, he/she/it		right?
	Were	you, we, they		late?

Now check your understanding »