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Exercises Past Simple Tense
Past Simple Tense
The Past Simple Tense is used
to refer to actions that were
completed in a time period
before the present time. In the
Simple Past the process of
performing the action is not
important. What matters is
that the action was completed
in the past. The action may
have been in the recent past or
a long time ago.
So let’s start learning the Simple Past Tense –
one of the most common tenses in spoken
English – and the points to pay attention to.
Using the Simple Past Tense
The Simple Past is used for actions
that started and finished at a specific
time in the past. It’s also possible to
use the simple past in a sentence
without specifying a time, but it
must have previously been made
clear that the speaker is referring to
a finished period.
I saw a movie last week.
The Simple Past is used to describe
several actions that were completed
in the past.
I finished work, walked to the beach and met my
friends.
The Simple Past is used to describe a
process that started and finished in
the past. In this case, the process of
the action is long and is used by
specifying time periods such as ‘the
whole year’ or ‘all day’.
I lived in Italy for five years.
The Simple Past can also be used in
sentences that describe past habits.
These sentences have the same
purpose as the expression ‘used to’.
It should be clear in this kind of
sentence that the action referred to
is a habit. Time expressions like
always, often, usually and never can
be used to underline this.
I often played football when I was a young man.
Forming the Simple Past
Affirmative sentences in the Simple Past
In affirmative sentences the word order is
subject + verb and the form of the verb in the
simple past is the same for all subjects (with
the exception of ‘to be’ – was/were).
Subject + past simple + object
For example:
I played football yesterday.
He saw his family last week.
I was in France in June.
Negative sentences in the Simple Past
To make negative negative sentences in the
simple past we use the auxiliary ‘did not’ /
‘didn’t’ and the base form of the verb.
Subject + did not + base form of verb + object
For example:
I didn’t play football yesterday.
They didn’t go to the theater last month.
She didn’t arrive on time this morning.
Questions in the Simple Past
To make questions in the simple past we use
‘did’ in front of the subject and base form of
the verb.
Did + subject + base form of verb + object?
For example:
Did you play football yesterday?
Did they lose the match?
Did he clean his home last weekend?
Regular and Irregular Verbs
In order to convert regular verbs from their
base form to the simple past form, we add -
ed. For irregular verbs, however, the simple
past form doesn’t follow this rule and can vary
significantly and you simply need to learn
them by heart. There are many irregular verbs
but below you can find the most common
ones that you need to know for daily use.
Regular verb examples
place – placed
dance – danced
plan – planned
stop – stopped
fix – fixed
snow – snowed
rain – rained
need – needed
help – helped
add – added
worry – worried
play – played
As you can see from these examples, with
most regular verbs we add -ed. When a verb
ends in -e we simply add -d. And when a verb
ends in a consonant and -y, we change the -y
to -i and add -ed.
Irregular verb examples
be – was/were
buy – bought
come – came
do – did
eat – ate
find – found
go – went
have – had
leave – left
make – made
pay – paid
see – saw
take – took
tell – told
write – wrote
By learning the simple past you can describe
many things about your personal and
professional life. So start practicing it now by
doing this fun quiz.
This post has been adapted and translated
from the original content by WSE Turkey here:
Simple Past Tense
The Past Simple
Practice speaking about the past
with this fun quiz.
START QUIZ
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