Simple Past (Regular verbs)

 SIMPLE PAST

The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now.

The simple past is formed by adding –ed to the base form of the verb (the infinite without to).

base form	+ ed =	simple past
walk		walked
push		pushed
greet		greeted
cover		covered

•  Regular verbs that end in a vowel+y, add –ed.

base form		simple past
play		played
decay		decayed
survey		surveyed
enjoy		enjoyed

• For regular verbs that end in a consonant+y, change the –y to –i and add –ed.

base form		simple past
cry		cried
dirty		dirtied
magnify		magnified

• For regular verbs ending in a consonant + vowel + consonant, double the final consonant before adding -ed.

base form		simple past
dam		dammed
beg		begged
plan		planned
strip		stripped

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.

To review:

To practice:

Excersices past simple