Published 10/08/2015 In Blog
The Past simple is the most commonly used tense to talk about past events or states which have finished.
- To talk about an action or event that happened in the past once or repeatedly:
We bought a red car three years ago
We went to the swimming pool every day in the Summer
We stayed at my brother's house last year
Note that the Past Simple is often used with past time references (yesterday, three years ago, last year, etc).
Most verbs in English construct the Past Simple by simply adding -ed to the infinitive of the verb:
start: start-ed
play: play-ed
learn: learn-ed
There are some spelling rules that you will have to take into account to form the Past Simple of regular verbs:
a) When the verb ends in a vowel and a consonant, the consonant is usually doubled:
stop: stop-ped
plan: plan-ned
b) When the verb ends in -y, you take off the -y and change it for -ied
study: stud-ied
try: tri-ed
c) When the verb ends in vowel and y, you add -ed
play: play-ed
enjoy: enjoy-ed
However there is a long list of English verbs that have an irregular Past Simple form.
In the poster above you will find the most common ones.
Note that the second column corresponds to the Past Simple form.
No it doesn't!
Example: I played, you played, he/she played, we played, you played, they played
Hopefully this post will have helped you understand when and how we construct the Past Simple tense. If it isn't so, please feel free to write me an email with your questions at: info@keelyalgarlanguages.com
past simple simple past english grammar irregular verbs