Lesson
“Dan visited his friends in London last year”:
How to Use the Past Simple Tense in English
As students of English, you probably know that there are many past tenses in English. The first one you should know well is the Past Simple. The only tricky part here is studying the irregular verbs.
Read this text first and focus on the underlined verbs
“Dan from New-York wanted to go on vacation so last year he visited his friends in London. He stayed with his good friend Donna. They were roommates in college when they studied accounting in the 90s. They also played tennis together on the college team for 2 years. Dan met Donna’s brother Tom, and they found out that they both liked English rock music. They went out together with more friends every night. They preferred musicals to plays and ate out at great restaurants all the time. It was a great holiday.”
When do I use it?
Use the Past Simple for actions, facts, states, and habits that were only true in the past and only when you know when!
1. Actions that happened and finished:
They played tennis together on the college team for two years.
Dan met Donna’s brother Tom.
2. Facts and states that were true:
He stayed with his good friend Donna.
They were roommates in college.
3. Repeated habits:
They went out together with more friends every night.
They ate out at great restaurants all the time.
What does it look like?
All the verbs above are in the Past Simple. There are 2 kinds of verbs in English – regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs add ed to all persons in the Past Simple (Dan wanted, They played, They liked). Irregular verbs change their form and have to be learned (meet-met, see-saw, are-were, find-found). A good way to study them is according irregular verb groups. Both types of verbs have the same form for all persons.
The formula to help you remember this is:
| Subject | Verb |
| All persons | Verb+ ed |
| All persons | Irregular Verb |
Spelling rules for adding ed to regular verbs:
1. Add d to verbs ending in e.
They both liked English rock music. (like)
2. Drop the y in verbs ending in a consonant+ y, and add ied.
They studied accounting. (study)
3. In verbs ending in a sequence of consonant-vowel-consonant with the stress falling on the last syllable, double the last consonant before adding ed.
They preferred musicals to plays
4. The verb “to be” has special forms:
| I, He, She, It | was |
| You, We, They | were |
Common Time Expressions:
LAST week/month/year, a week/month/year AGO, yesterday, in 1998, earlier today.
We hope our article helped you, and don’t forget that irregular verbs do not add ed but change in the Past Simple.
This article was contributed by WhiteSmoke, leader in English writing software
