Simple Past Tense

Definition of the simple past tense

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.

Examples

• Mohamed Salah sailed to Europe  in 2014.
• My father died last year.
• He lived in Turkey in 2010.
• We crossed the gate yesterday.

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions

• frequency: often, sometimes, always
  Khawarizmi sometimes walked home at Prayer time.
  I often brought my lunch to garden.
• a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
  We saw a good film last week.
  Yesterday, I arrived in Mecca.
  Khadijah finished her work at one o'clock
  I went to the Alhambra Mosque last night
• an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago
  People lived in caves a long time ago.
  Anissa played the piano when she was a child.

Note: the word ago is a useful way of expressing the distance into the past. It is placed after the period of time: a week ago, three years ago, a minute ago.

Be Careful: The simple past in English may look like a tense in your own language, but the meaning may be different.

Forming the Simple Past Tense

Patterns of simple past tense for regular verbs

Affirmative
Subject	+ verb + ed
I	skipped.
Negative
Subject	+ did not	+ infinitive without to
They	didn't	go.
Interrogative
Did	+ subject	+ infinitive without to
Did	she	arrive?
Interrogative negative
Did not	+ subject	+ infinitive without to
Didn't	you	play?

To Walk

Affirmative	Negative	Interrogative
I Worked	I didn't work	Did I work?
You worked	You didn't work	Did you work?
He worked	He didn't work	Did he work?
We worked	We didn't work	Did we work?
They worked	They didn't work	Did they work?

Simple past tense of to be, to have, to 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

Notes on affirmative, negative, & interrogative forms

Affirmative

The affirmative of the simple past tense is simple.

• I was in Istambul last year
• She had a headache yesterday.
• We did our homework last night.

Negative and interrogative

For the negative and interrogative simple past form of "to do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "did", e.g. We didn't do our homework last night.
The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed using the auxiliary "did", but sometimes by simply adding not or the contraction "n't".

The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses the auxiliary "did".

Examples

• They weren't in Egypt last summer.
• We didn't have any money.
• We didn't have time to visit the Mecca.
• We didn't do our exercises this morning.
• Were they in Iceland last January?
• Did you have a bicycle when you were young?
• Did you do much climbing in Semeru?

Note: For the negative and interrogative form of all verbs in the simple past, always use the auxiliary 'did''.

Simple past, irregular verbs

Some verbs are irregular in the simple past. Here are the most common ones.

to go

• Ahmad went to a study club last night.
• Did he go to the Boarding school 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 Omar their new address.
• Did Omar 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?