Past Simple

In English, the Past Simple is used to describe actions that happened at a specific time in the past. It is commonly used for completed actions, past habits, and sequences of past events.

The Past Simple is formed in two ways:

• Regular verbs: Add -ed to the base form of the verb (e.g., work → worked, play → played, walk → walked).
• Irregular verbs: These have unique past forms that must be memorized (e.g., go → went, eat → ate).

Basic structure of Past Simple:

• Affirmative: Subject + past form of the verb → I worked, She played, They walked.
• Negative: Subject + did not (didn't) + base form of the verb → I didn't work, She didn't play, They didn't walk.
• Question: Did + subject + base form of the verb? → Did you work? Did she play? Did they walk?

The Past Simple for irregular verbs follows an individual pattern for each verb, as shown in the following examples for the most important verbs.