THE PAST SIMPLE

Regular and Irregular Verbs

REGULAR VERBS The regular verbs are characterized

for finishing in “ed”. Some examples are:

Base Form Simple Past

Work Worked

Play Played

Study Studied*

Stop Stopped*

REGULAR VERBS The grammar form in affirmative sentences is

extremely simple! There is no plural or singular form. It works in the

same way for all the subjects. Check the chart below:

Subject (Pronoun)

Verb Complement

I

worked very hard yesterday.

You

He / She / It

We

They

Tom //My parents

REGULAR VERBS There are some “spelling rules” for regular verbs in

the simple past.

Check these differences with verbs finishing in “Y”:

1- Play –Stay & Pray have a “vowel” before “Y”, so you only add “ed” in the affirmative form of the Simple Past.

2- Study & Cry have a “consonant” before “Y”, so it’s necessary to change “Y” into “i” and then add “ed”, so that the past tense is written as an “ied” ending.

Base form Simple Past

Play - Stay - Pray Played – Stayed – Prayed

Study – Cry Studied - Cried

REGULAR VERBS Now check these two groups:

1- As you see, the first group is the normal rule: You simply add “ed” to the verbs in the Simple Past.

2- In the second group “Stop, Slam & Rob” you must duplicate the last “consonant”. The reason? The final three letters of the verb are: A CONSONANT – A VOWEL (stressed) - & A CONSONANT (CVC) .

C- V- C S T O P P E D S L A M M E D R O B B E D

Base form Simple Past

Work – Need – Listen Worked – Needed – Listened

Stop – Slam - Rob Stopped – Slammed – Robbed

IRREGULAR VERBS To use the irregular verbs you must “memorize”

all of them because there are many of them. So you really need a good list and start to learn them “by heart*”. Some examples of irregular verbs are:

* “By heart”: Expression used to express that you must memorize something

Base Form Simple Past

Buy Bought

Drive Drove

Read Read

Begin Began

IRREGULAR VERBS So, the “affirmative form” of irregular

verbs is very simple only if you know ALL the verbs:

There is no singular or plural form, just use the verb in past for all the subjects.

Pronoun (Subject)

Verb Complement

I

boughta new car last

month.

You

He / She / It

We

They

Mary // Your friends

NEGATIVE FORM For the negative form in the Past Simple you need to

use the auxiliary verb “didn’t” for both regular and irregular verbs.

The main verb goes in BASE FORM, and NOT in the Past Simple. Check:

Pronoun (Subject)

Auxiliary Verb

Main Verb Complement

I

didn’t

clean(regular)

Mr. Brown’s window.

You

He /She / It

We

break(irregular)

They

Mark //Linda &

Paul

QUESTION FORM The structure for the question form is the

following:

Remember there’s no plural or singular form in the Simple Past,

so it works the same for all the pronouns and subjects:

Wh (when

necessary)

Auxiliary Verb (did)

Subject (Pronoun)

Main Verb(Base Form)

Complement ?(if necessary)

Didthey

leaveon time?

Mark ?

Where

didshe

arrivelast night?

When our parents

?

SHORT ANSWERS As in any other tense, in the Simple

Past we also deal with short answers: So it works like this:

QUESTIONQUESTION

Did

I

go to the

party?

you

he –she

it

we

they

ANSWER

Yes I / you

did. he/she/ it

we / they

No I / you

didn’t he/she/ it

we / they