The simple past by Mauricio Yemi

When do we use the simple past? To talk about finished actions in the past To mention the specific time of an action in the past

Let’s start with a verb Play We played football yesterday. Play is a regular verb. To conjugate it we just add “ed” in the end.

Pay attention! Some regular verbs need a different conjugation in the simple past affirmative: study – studied travel – travelled

What happens in negative sentences? We didn’t play football yesterday. It is not necessary to conjugate the verbs in the simple past negative, but the auxiliary verb “didn’t” is mandatory.

How can we form questions? Did you play football yesterday? We don’t conjugate the verb in the questions, but we use the auxiliary verb “did” in the beginning.

Let’s use another verb Buy We bought oranges yesterday. Buy is an irregular verb, so we have a special way to conjugate it in the past.

Other examples of irregular verbs: make - made find - found put - put send - sent

No conjugation is necessary in the negative form We didn’t buy oranges yesterday.

How do we make questions? Did you buy oranges yesterday? We don’t need to conjugate the verb, but we have to start the questions with the auxiliary verb “did”.

We can also use the verb “To Be” in the past Susan was at home last night. The students were at school 4 days ago.

We don’t use auxiliary verbs with “To Be” Susan wasn’t at home last night. The students weren’t at school 4 days ago.

And we use the verb “To Be” to start a question Was Susan at home last night? Were the students at school 4 days ago?

Difference between “was” and “were” We use “was” and “wasn’t” for: I, he, she, it We use “were” and “weren’t” for: we, you, they

It is also possible to use interrogative pronouns Where did you play football? What did you buy? When did they study? Why was she at home?

That’s all for today! Would you like to see other explanations in our blog? Send a suggestion to mauricio@dicasingles.com See you next time!