Simple Past Tense: Regular and Irregular Verbs In this Tutorial you will learn: 1- The Affirmative Statements 2- The Negative Statements 3- Yes/ No Questions. 4- Short answers. 5- WH-Questions

Use the simple past tense to talk about actions, states, or situations that are now finished. >< Future Past He traveled to Japan

Examples She was born in Mexico city. She lived in Chicago She was very shy. She taught Spanish in 1970s.

You can use the simple past tense with time expression that refer to the past such as last week , by 1681, in the seventeenth century, or 10 years ago.

Click here to watch a video and listen to people use simple past in their speech

Remember the simple past of regular verbs is formed by adding –d or –ed . Be careful ! There are often spelling changes when you add –d or –ed to the verb Base Form Simple Past Live Lived Join Joined Study Studies Hop Hopped Prefer preferred

Many common English verbs are irregular( their past tense is not formed by adding –d or –ed. See Appendix A for a list of irregular verbs. Base Form Simple Past Be Was/were Build Built Have Had Get Got Go went

AFFIRMATIVE STATMENTS Subject verb I Moved Traveled To Japan. You He She It Came* Left* In 1684. We They Come (came) and leave (left) are irregular verbs. See Appendix A for a list of irregular verbs

NEGATIVE STATMENTS Subject DID NOT Base Form of Verb I didn’t Move Travel To Japan. You He She It Come Leave In 1684. We They

Yes/No Questions Did Subject Base Form of Verb I Move Travel To Japan? You He She It Come Leave In 1684? We They

Short answer Affirmative Yes, I did. You He She It We They Negative No, I didn’t. You He She It We They

WH- Questions Wh- Word Did Subject Base Form of Verb When Why did I Move Travel To Japan? You He She It Come? Leave? We They

Click here to go back to the lesson Appendix A this link will take you to Irregular Verb Dictionary page Click here to go back to the lesson

References Marjorie Fuchs, 1999. Focus on Grammar. http://marzioschool.free.fr/34Did.rm http://www.englishpage.com/irregularverbs/irregularverb s.html