Class #10 - Simple Past

VOCABULARY

BENCH

THEY'RE ON A DATE

SHE'S EATING

ELDERLY WOMAN / YOUNG WOMAN

ICE CREAM

KNITTING

THE GIRL IS MEETING THE BOY

PARK

POPCORN

RAIN / IT'S RAINING

SHE'S SHY

STANDING / SITTING

ROCKING CHAIR

NEWSPAPER

SUNNY DAY

ZOO

LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY

H: Gertrude.

G: Yes, Harold.

H: Do you remember when we were young?

G: Of course I do. I remember like it was yesterday.

H: I remember the day we met. You were fourteen. I was fifteen.

G: Actually, I was sixteen and you were seventeen.

H: I was?

G: Yes, you were.

H: You were beautiful.

G: Oh, no I wasn't.

H: Yes, you were Gertrude, you were very beautiful.

G: You were handsome.

H: Me? Handsome? No, I wasn't. I was nothing special.

G: That's not true. You were very handsome. And very special.

     I remember I was shy.

H: You weren't shy at all. You were very outgoing and very popular.

G: Oh, that's right. I was very popular. And you were very popular too. You were always very busy.

H: I was. I was always with my friends.

G: Do you remember our first date?

H: Of course. We went to the zoo.

G: No, we didn't. We went to the park.

H: We didn't go to the park Gertrude, we went to the zoo. I remember.

G: Harold, we went to the park. We sat on a bench in the park and we talked for hours and hours.

H: Gertrude, we didn't go to the park and we didn't sit on a bench. We went to the zoo and looked at the animals.

G: You're wrong, Harold. I remember. I remember like it was yesterday.

H: You know what? The zoo was in the park.

G: That's right! It was! We went to the zoo in the park.

H: We did. And we sat on a bench and we talked for hours and hours. 

G: We ate some ice cream. 

H: That's right. And we had some popcorn

G: That's right, we did.

H: It was a beautiful day.

G: Actually, it started to rain.

H: It didn't rain, it was sunny.

G: No, it wasn't Harold, it wasn't sunny. It rained.

H: It didn't rain, Gertrude. 

G: Yes, it did.

H: Well, maybe you're right. 

G: It doesn't matter. It was a very special day.

H: You're right, it was. I remember like it was yesterday.

GRAMMAR

The Simple Past Tense

English uses verbs in the simple past tense to refer to actions, situations, or events that are finished and that happened before now. There are three ways to form simple past tense in English. One way is what happens with the verb be: it uses the special forms was and were. 
Another way is what happens with regular verbs.
(They are called regular because they all add the same ending--ed--or some variation on it.)

Regular Verbs:

Regular verbs make their past tense by adding - d, - ed, or (if the verb ends in a consonant + y), changing the y to i and then adding - ed. Examples: Add -d:  baked, cared, eased, filed, greased, hated, liked, piled, raced, seized, smiled, typed, wheezed, whined Change y to i and add -ed: apply / applied; bury / buried; cry / cried; fry / fried; hurry / hurried; marry / married; pry / pried; spy / spied try / tried vary / varied worry / worried Add -ed:  other regular verbs: asked, belonged, clapped, dialed, filled, guessed, hopped, looked, marked, needed, pulled, reached, started, touched, viewed, washed, yelled, zipped

But there are a lot of irregular past tenses in English. Her are the most common irregular verbs in English, with their past tenses:

infinitive	irregular past
be begin break bring buy build choose come cost cut do draw drive eat feel find get give go have hear hold keep know leave lead let lie lose make mean meet pay put run say sell send set sit speak spend stand take teach tell think understand wear win write	was/were began broke brought bought built chose came cost cut did drew drove ate felt found got gave went had heard held kept knew left led let lay lost made meant met paid put ran said sold sent set sat spoke spent stood took taught told thought understood wore won wrote

 Use

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 again and again 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 phrases with ago with the past tense:

I met my wife a long time ago.

Questions and negatives

We use did to make questions with the past tense:

When did you meet your wife?
Where did you go for your holidays?
Did she play tennis when she was younger?
Did you live abroad?

But look at these questions:

Who discovered penicillin?
Who wrote Don Quixote?

For more on these questions see question forms

We use didn’t (did not) to make negatives with the past tense:

They didn’t go to Spain this year.
We didn’t get home until very late last night.
I didn’t see you yesterday.