Simple Past Tense
The Simple Past Tense, often just called the Past Tense, is easy to use in English.
If you already know how to use the Present Tense , then the Past Tense will be easy.
In general, the Past Tense is used to talk about something that started and finished at a definite time in the past.
How to form the Past Tense in English
The main rule is that for every verb in English, there is only one form of it in the past tense.
(The exception is the Past tense of To Be, which has two forms: was and were)
This is totally different from other languages such as Spanish, French, Italian etc. where you change the verb ending
for every subject.
For example: The past tense of the verb want is wanted.
Wanted is used as the past tense for all subjects/pronouns.
•I wanted
•You wanted
•He wanted
•She wanted
•It wanted
•We wanted
•They wanted
So you just have to learn one word to be able to use it in the past tense. In this case we just needed to learn the one
word wanted which can be used for all subjects (or people).
Past Tense Regular Verbs
To change a regular verb into its past tense form, we normally add –ED to the end of the verb.
•play – played
•cook – cooked
•rain – rained
•wait – waited
Examples of sentences using regular verbs in the past tense
•Last night I played my guitar loudly and the neighbors complained.
•She kissed me on the cheek.
•It rained yesterday.
•Angela watched TV all night.
•John wanted to go to the museum.
Negative sentences in the Past Tense
We use didn't (did not) to make a negative sentence in the past tense.
This is for regular AND irregular verbs in English.
(Exception is To Be and Modal Verbs such as Can)
