Level: beginner
With most verbs, the past tense is formed by adding –ed:
| called | liked | wanted | worked |
But there are a lot of irregular past tense forms in English. Here are the most common irregular verbs in English, with their past tense forms:
| Base form | Past tense |
|---|---|
| be begin break bring buy build choose come cost cut do draw drive eat feel find get give go have hear hold keep know leave lead let lie lose make mean meet pay put run say sell send set sit speak spend stand take teach tell think understand wear win write |
was/were began broke brought bought built chose came cost cut did drew drove ate felt found got gave went had heard held kept knew left led let lay lost made meant met paid put ran said sold sent set sat spoke spent stood took taught told thought understood wore won wrote |
We use the past tense to talk about:
- something that happened once in the past:
I met my wife in 1983.
We went to Spain for our holidays.
They got home very late last night.
- something that happened several times in the past:
When I was a boy, I walked a mile to school every day.
We swam a lot while we were on holiday.
They always enjoyed visiting their friends.
- something that was true for some time in the past:
I lived abroad for ten years.
He enjoyed being a student.
She played a lot of tennis when she was younger.
- we often use expressions with ago with the past simple:
I met my wife a long time ago.
- Past simple 1
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- Past simple 2
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Past simple questions and negatives
We use did to make questions with the past simple:
Did she play tennis when she was younger?
Did you live abroad?
When did you meet your wife?
Where did you go for your holidays?
But questions with who often don't use did:
Who discovered penicillin?
Who wrote Don Quixote?
- Past simple questions 1
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- Past simple questions 2
- GapFillTyping_MTYzMjU=
We use didn't (did not) to make negatives with the past simple:
They didn't go to Spain this year.
We didn't get home until very late last night.
I didn't see you yesterday.
- Past simple negatives 1
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- Past simple negatives 2
- GapFillTyping_MTYzMjc=
Level: intermediate
Past simple and hypotheses
We can also use the past simple to refer to the present or future in hypotheses (when we imagine something). See these pages:
Comments
this article lists a few uses of the simple past tense, two of which are "something that happened several times in the past" with example - "When I was a boy, I walked a mile to school every day", and "something that was true for some time in the past" - with example being "She played a lot of tennis when she was younger".
Is there any difference between these two uses? sounds the same to me. Thks.
Hi Timothy555,
It's a good question! They are similar, but there is a difference.
For the meaning of something that was true for some time in the past, we don't think of it as divisible into individual, repeated actions. The other examples show this more clearly: I lived abroad for ten years. / He enjoyed being a student. In these examples, we understand 'lived' and 'enjoyed' as long-lasting actions, rather than individual and repeated.
So, how about the tennis example? We can understand She played a lot of tennis as a general action over a longer period of time, just like 'lived' and 'enjoyed' in the other examples, without the more detailed sense of it consisting of repeated individual actions. A speaker might intend this meaning if there's no particular need in the conversation to emphasise the repeatedness of the action or its frequency.
But it's true that we can also understand the tennis example as the first meaning you mentioned, something that happened several times in the past - i.e. a repeated individual action: she played match after match, week after week (for example). We could add the frequency to support this intended meaning:
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi!
Firstly, this article talks about the Simple Past Tense, correct?
Secondly, the title of this article says "Past Simple", however, the article then goes on to say "We use the past tense to talk about..". Does this mean that the "Past Simple Tense" can also be referred to simply as the "Past Tense" (i.e. we can drop the term "simple") and it still means the same thing?
Hi Timothy555,
Yes, that's right! Past simple and Simple past are the same thing. Both names are commonly used in learning materials and by teachers.
Yes, it's also common to refer to the past simple as the past tense. (Technically speaking, English has only two tenses: present and past. Other perfect or continuous forms that we sometimes call 'tenses' are more properly called aspects.)
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
I really.......my cat.I was so sad when he died
1-love
2-loved
Pablo Picasso........an Italian painter who died in 1929
1-is
2-was
And can you explain why?
Hello Turki123456,
Both of your sentences are about the past. We know this because there are past tense verbs in each (died). Thus, the correct form is the past simple in each case: loved and was.
Of course, sometimes people still feel love after someone dies, but the convention is to place it in the past.
You can also sometimes hear people use a present form when defining something from history, using it with the sense 'Pablo Picasso is the name of a painter who died in...' In other words, the present is really referring to the name or title rather than the person.
By the way, Picasso was Spanish, not Italian.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Can anybody help me to write a story about Feeling under the weather – (I am sick ) must have to use past simple and past continuous tense.
Thanks
It must have been COVID-19 depression... thought I. It took away my freedom putting me in an isolation, which had a depressing influence on me. But when I looked at two sides of a coin, it was not necessarily bad. Actually I was fed up with crazy mass tourism and excessive commercialism and wanted someone to stop it! Surprisingly enough, it happened. I think we are heading off in a new direction and in a transition period at the moment. How exciting it is!! That’s why I got out of feeling under the weather... ;)
Hi,
If l list a series of actions in the simple past, for example: "On Sunday my brother and I went to a nice lake. There we met our friends. We swam in the warm water and played volleyball in the afternoon. Too bad that we had to go home in the evening. We didn't want to go to school on Monday."
Does it mean, by default, that the actions described above using the simple past tense all happened one after another?
Regards,
Tim
Hello Timothy555,
Yes, in general, such a list of actions is understood as a narrative, i.e. a sequence of actions.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
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