Past Tense

Verb 'to be'

Examples:

I was tired.

You were tired/You’re tired.

She was tired/She’s tired.

Were you tired?

Was he tired?/ No, he wasn’t tired.

Were they tired?/No, they weren’t.

1.1

Past Simple Tense

Affirmative Form

The form is as follow:

Verb + ed

For irregular verbs, however, the forms have to be memorized by heart.

I, you, we, they -> played

She, he, it -> played

Examples:

I played the accordion well.

Niall and Harry played the accordion well.

My sister played the accordion well.

Irregular verbs examples:

Be -> was/were

Do/does -> did

Have/has -> had

Write -> wrote

Interrogative Form

Did (I, you, we, they) -> play
Did (she, he, it) -> play

Examples:

Did you play BTS?

Did your sister play BTS?

Did she do her drawing?

Negative Form

(I, you, we, they) did not/didn’t -> play
(She, he, it) did not/didn’t -> play

Examples:

I did not/didn’t jog just now.

Mother did not/didn’t jog.

The use of past simple tense

1. Finished events in the past

William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Christoph Columbus discovered America in 1492.
He kissed her and left.

2. Past habitual action

I visited them every day for a year.
I drove to work every day when I worked with that company.

3. Events that were true for some time in the past

He lived in Paris for 20 years.
They talked on the phone for ten minutes.

The spelling of verbs in past simple tense

Type	Present tense	Past tense
Silent e	Close	Closed
	Die	Died
	Phone	Phoned
Vowel + y	Play	Played
	Destroy	Destroyed
	Show	Showed
Consonant + y	Marry	Married
	Carry	Carried
	Study	Studied
Other forms	Visit	Visited
	Miss	Missed
	Watch	Watched
	Finish	Finished
	Fix	Fixed
	Buzz	Buzzed

1.2

Past Continuous Simple

The form

The verb to be (in the past simple) + Verb-ing

Example:

Yesterday morning I was hanging my laundry when the postman came.

Affirmative Form

Examples:

I was eating.

You/we/they were eating.

She/he/it was eating.

Interrogative Form

Examples:

Was I eating?

Were you/we/they eating?

Was she/he/it eating?

Negative Form

Examples:

I was not/wasn’t eating.

You/we/they were not/weren’t eating.

She/he/it was not/wasn’t eating.

The use of past continuous simple tense

1. We use the past continuous tense to say that somebody was in the middle of doing something at a certain time in the past.

Example:
"This time yesterday, I was doing my homework."

2. We use the past continuous to say that something happened in the middle of something else:
Example:
"Bob burnt his hand when he was cooking dinner yesterday."
"While I was working in the garden, I hurt my back."

1.3

Past Perfect Simple Tense

	The form
	Had + Verb in the past participle form

Examples:

Affirmative	Negative	Interrogative
I had worked.	I had not/ hadn’t worked.	Had I worked?
You had worked.	She had not/ hadn’t worked.	Had she worked?

The use of past perfect simple tense

1. The past perfect simple tense is used to show an action completed before another action in the past.

Examples:

He had learned Spanish before he went to Spain.
President Lincoln had attended the theatre before his assassination in 1865.
They had had lunch when I arrived.
She passed the exam because she had worked very hard.

1.4

Past Perfect Continuous

The form

Had + Been + Verb-ing

Affirmative	Negative	Interrogative
I had been working.	I had not/ hadn’t been working.	Had you been working?

The use of past perfect continuous tense

1. We use the past perfect continuous tense to show that something started in the past and continued until another action stopped it.

Example:

We had been playing soccer when the accident occurred

2. We use the past perfect continuous to show that something started in the past and continued up until another time in the past. In this case, we use expressions of duration such as:

for an hour
for three years

Example:

I had been living in that small town for three years before I moved to New York.

3. We use the Past Perfect Continuous before another action in the past to show cause and effect.

Example:

I was so tired. I had been revising my lessons for hours.

Past Tense

Chapter : Grammar and Vocabulary

Topic : Tenses : Mixed

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