Grammar 08 - Tenses - Simple Past

BAKE-BAKED
FILE-FILED
SMILE-SMILED
ASK-ASKED
REACH-REACHED
START-STARTED
CARRY-CARRIED
FRY-FRIED
WORRY-WORRIED

Of course, there are other verbs that use other forms to form their simple past. They are irregular verbs. Here are some examples:

MAKE-MADE
BECOME-BECAME
CUT-CUT
BRING-BROUGHT

Irregular verbs have their own simple past forms that are unique and only practice would help us to remember them.

The purpose of simple past form is to describe an action in the past and in order to show when an action took place we make use of words and phrases that include adverbs of time and reference to time in the past. For instance, the sentence ‘I met him yesterday’ comprises the simple past form of meet (met) and by adding ‘yesterday’ we are indicating the time was in the past.

Simple past forms can also be in the negative. The negative form can be made by adding ‘not’ after ‘was’ or ‘were.’ For instance, ‘Mary WAS NOT at the party yesterday’ is a sentence with a negative form. With other verbs negative forms can be formed by adding DID NOT before the base verb. For instance, Mary DID NOT ATTEND the party yesterday’ is a sentence with a negative form using normal verbs.

Remember that by adding ‘had’ before the past participle of the verb we use the past perfect tense. So, when we describe two actions in a sentence, the action taking place earlier than the other would be in past perfect tense and the other action would be in simple past. By taking the quiz that follows we will be able to learn more about past tenses in sentences.