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The simple past in English may look like a tense in your own language, but the meaning may be different.
1. Simple Past: Form
Regular verbs: base+ed
e.g. walked, showed, watched, played, smiled, stopped
Irregular verbs: see list of verbs
Simple past, be, have, do:
Subject Verb
Be
Have
Do
I
was
had
did
You
were
had
did
He, she, it
was
had
did
We
were
had
did
You
were
had
did
They
were
had
did
Affirmative
* I was in Japan last year
* She had a headache yesterday.
* We did our homework last night.
Negative and interrogative
Note:
For the negative and interrogative simple past form of "do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "do", e.g. We didn't do our homework last night. The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed using the auxiliary "do", but sometimes by simply adding not or the contraction "n't".
The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses the auxiliary "do".
* They weren't in Rio last summer.
* We hadn't any money.
* We didn't have time to visit the Eiffel Tower.
* We didn't do our exercises this morning.
* Were they in Iceland last January?
* Did you have a bicycle when you were a boy?
* Did you do much climbing in Switzerland?
Simple past, regular verbs
Affirmative
Subject
verb + ed
I
washed
Negative
Subject
did not
infinitive without to
They
didn't
visit ...
Interrogative
Did
subject
infinitive without to
Did
she
arrive...?
Interrogative negative
Did not
subject
infinitive without to
Didn't
you
like..?
Example: to walk, simple past.
Affirmative
Negative
Interrogative
I walked
I didn't walk
Did I walk?
You walked
You didn't walk
Did you walk?
He,she,it walked
He didn't walk
Did he walk?
We walked
We didn't walk
Did we walk?
You walked
You didn't walk
Did you walk?
They walked
They didn't walk
Did they walk?
Note: For the negative and interrogative form of all verbs in the simple past, always use the auxiliary 'did''.
Examples: Simple past, irregular verbs
to go
* He went to a club last night.
* Did he go to the cinema last night?
* He didn't go to bed early last night.
to give
* We gave her a doll for her birthday.
* They didn't give John their new address.
* Did Barry give you my passport?
to come
* My parents came to visit me last July.
* We didn't come because it was raining.
* Did he come to your party last week?
2. Simple past, function
The simple past is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. Duration is not important. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past.
* John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
* My father died last year.
* He lived in Fiji in 1976.
* We crossed the Channel yesterday.
You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions
Examples
* frequency:
often, sometimes, always;
* a definite point in time:
last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago.
* an indefinite point in time:
the other day, ages ago, a long time ago etc.
Note: the word ago is a useful way of expressing the distance into the past. It is placed after the period of time e.g. a week ago, three years ago, a minute ago.
Examples
* Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
* She finished her work at seven o'clock.
* We saw a good film last week.
* I went to the theatre last night.
* She played the piano when she was a child.
* He sent me a letter six months ago.
* Peter left five minutes ago.
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