SIMPLE PAST TENSE

Author: John Vargas Beltrán

Simple past tense or past simple is used for actions that happened in the past. Is important to know that in the past simple there are 2 types of verbs.

Regular Verb: The verb maintains his form.

Irregular Verb: The verb changes his form.

Gramatical Rules:

Author: Font Diner

1. All the persons and pronouns stay the same (I, you, he, she, it , we, they)

2. All the regular Verbs have to end in "-ed"

EXAMPLE:

• play - played
• work - worked
• learn - learned
• walk - walked

3. There are a few exceptions for regular Verbs:

        -  if the verb ends in "e" only you have to add "-d"

        -  If the verb complies with the CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant), the last consonant is repeated  then you add "-ed".

           

        This law is more well-know as "beer's law".

          Beer's law: If the verb complies the CVC, we are going to see the last consonant double.

            In other words, the last consonant is repeated. This law is not apply to words that ends in "Y" or "W"

EXAMPLE: 

Stop - stopped

swap - swapped

commit - committed

        -  If the verb ends in "Y" it is changed for "I" and then add "-ed"

EXAMPLE: 

Hurry - Hurried

Study - Studied

Try - Tried

4. When we talk about irregular verbs, this ones don't have a way to be form, for that reason is recommended to search for their past form in the diccionary or memorizing them.

EXAMPLE:

• speak - spoke
• see - saw
• fly - flew
• eat - ate

5. The verb TO BE in the past simples is irregular, so it changes according to the pronoun or person:

be - was: I, He, She, it // were: You, we, they

The structure for creating senteces is the same than the present simple, just changing the following:

the am/are/is for the was/were.

IMPORTANT: Wasn't is used for was not and weren't for were not.

sentence affirmative: she was my mother

sentence negative: she was not my mother / she wasn't my mother

sentence interrogative: was she my mother?