Past Simple Tense (Past Tense)

hi I'm Jeremy and this is grammar gurus on this episode we will be looking at the past simple tense we will look at when we use the past simple tense how we form it and we'll look at a few examples sentences we can use the past simple tense in a few different ways to talk about the past first we can use it to talk about a completed action in the past for example the phone rang a few minutes ago she watched a movie last night I went to New Hampshire last year it's very cold and it's snowing these are all examples of completed actions in the past we can also use the past simple tense to talk about a series of completed or finished actions in the past for example he chopped the onions boiled the water and cooked the chicken or we booked our flights packed our bags and took a taxi to the airport or we can use the past simple tense to talk about an action that took place over a duration of time showing how long the action happened especially using the expressions for or all for example she lived in England for four years she doesn't live there now but she did for a period of four years or I stayed at the station for twenty minutes or we could say we waited there all day or you studied all week we can also use the past simple tense to talk about things that we did habitually in the past things that we did a lot in the past especially using the expressions when or the adverbs of frequency never sometimes often usually or always for example I always played football after school when I was a kid or they usually took the subway to school or he ate spicy food when he lived in Thailand and lastly we can use the past simple tense to describe things in the past and the way that they were to describe things in the past we often use the verb to be which in the past simple tense takes the form of was or work we use was with I and with she he and it and we use were with you we and then okay let's take a look at a few examples of this I was a very cute baby they were excellent students she was very popular in high school these are all examples of describing things in the way that they were in the past simple tense now let's take a look at the form of the past simple tense we form the past simple tense with a subject plus the path simple form of the verb and that's it now it's time for some example sentences first let's look at an example sentence of a completed action in the past she ate a bug okay so in this sentence what's the subject the who or the what that's doing the action she and what's the main action what's the main verb in this sentence eight and are there any helper verbs verbs that help to make this tense no in the past simple tense we don't have a helper verb now let's take this sentence and make some questions with it first let's make some yes/no questions questions that could be answered with yes or no and to make a yes/no question we need to take a helper verb and remember in the past simple tense we don't have a helper verb so what do we do when we don't have a helper verb we use the helper verb do and we put do in the front of our sentence and do is so helpful that it takes the past tense from 8 and it becomes did while 8 changes back to eat so our question is did she eat a bug and to answer this we can answer it with yes or no but we need something more than just yes or no we use yes plus the subject plus the helper verb so yes she did if we want to answer with no we need to have not so we can say no plus the subject plus the helper verb plus not no she did not now did and not can be put together to form a contraction and a contraction is when you take two words and you put them together to form one new word usually with a little apostrophe in there so did and not form the contraction didn't know she did it now let's see an example sentence of describing things in the way that they were in the past they were lost so we have the subject they and we have the verb to be in the form of work and the verb to be is a very special word because it adds as the main verb in the sentence and with the verb to be we don't need to add a helper verb to make questions so to make a yes-or-no question with this sentence they were lost we just take our very special word the verb to be were and we move it to the front and it becomes were they lost and we can answer this with yes or no but remember we need something more than just yes or no so what we do is we answer with yes plus the subject de plus the verb to be war yes they war and if we want to answer with no we need to have not so we can say no plus the subject they plus the verb to be war plus not no they were not or no they weren't now let's look at how to make some more information questions sometimes just yes or no isn't enough and we want some more information so let's take a look at how we do that so to do this we take our more information question words words like when where why or how and we put them in front of our yes/no question so with our first question did she eat a bug we can use the question word when and we can ask when did she eat a bug and we can answer she ate a bug yesterday or we can use how and we put how in front of our yes/no question and it becomes how did she eat a bug and we can answer she ate a bug with her hands now let's look at our other question were they lost and we can use our more information question words to get more information so let's try where where were they lost we can say they were lost in bed or we could use why why were they lost they were lost because they had the wrong map let's take a look at how to make questions with who or what to make a question with who or what we just take our original sentence and we take out the subject and we replace it with who or what we use who to talk about people and we use what to talk about things that aren't people so let's take a look at our first example sentence she ate a bug now we can take out she and we can add in who who ate a bug and we can answer I ate a bug and let's look at our other sentence with the verb to be they were lost we just take they out and we replace it with what and the question becomes what was lost the zombie was lost ah haha now let's take a look at how to make negatives in the past simple tense sometimes we want to show that something didn't happen in the past or that something wasn't true in the past so we make the sentence negative okay let's take a look at our first example sentence she ate a bug now to make this sentence negative we need a helper verb and we need to add not and remember we don't have a helper verb so we can use the helper verb do and remember do takes the past tense from ate and becomes did and so we can say she did not eat a bug or she didn't eat a bug now with our other example sentence they were lost we have a very special word the verb to be in the form of work and when we have the verb to be we don't need a helper verb we just add not after the verb to be so we can say they were not lost or they weren't lost okay now it's time for the tough stuff the past simple tense can be easy in the sense that we don't need to change the verb for I you she he it we or they but it's difficult because there are so many irregular verbs verbs that change in a strange way the way that eat becomes ate or how take becomes took or make becomes made these irregular verbs you will just have to memorize there is no easy way or trick to remember these but we do have a link posted in the description below the other difficult thing in the past simple tense is the pronunciation of the IDI end the IDI end regular verbs can be pronounced in three different ways it can be pronounced as a sound a sound or as an it sound let's take a look at a few examples of these sounds verbs that end in an M n r g j l z v b or a vowel sound have a sound for the e d and for example slammed canned slurred clogged wedged pulled buzzed loved jabbed played verbs that end in a p SS h CH f k or x sound have a sound for the e d ending for example stopped past pushed washed coughed packed boxed now you don't need to remember all of these sounds but just try and pay attention and hear which sound they are making but one thing you should remember is that when a verb ends in a tea or a D sound already it has an extra sound for example the way weight becomes weighted or dedicate becomes dedicated cheat becomes cheated code becomes coded load becomes loaded and fade becomes faded but remember this is only for verbs that have the T or D sound at the end already you cannot say walk kid love it or stop it those should be pronounced walked loved stopped now let's see if you can hear the different sounds the IDI ending makes which of these four words has a sound for its IDI ending showed opened snapped or landed snapped snapped has it sound at the end shoved and opened has a sound at the end and landed has an extra sound at the end now which one of these words has a sound at the end for its IDI ending shocked hummed painted cached hummed hummed has the duh sound at the end while shocked and cached have a sound at the end and painted has an extra its sound at the end painted okay and one more let's take a look at these four words and see which one has an extra in sound at the end printed saved scanned or searched printed printed has an extra hid at the end saved and scanned have a sound at the end and searched has a sound at the end okay well that's it for this episode of grammar gurus I hope you enjoyed learning about the past simple tense be sure to click here and subscribe and if you have any questions about English or grammar leave them in the comments below thanks ha

Channel: Grammar Gurus

Views: 154,634

Rating: 4.823853 out of 5

Keywords: past simple tense, past tense, Simple Past

Id: caNzCgg5kBI

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2015