Simple Past

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.

Examples

• John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
• My father died last year.
• He lived in Fiji in 1976.
• We crossed the Channel yesterday.

Time expressions associated with the Simple Past tense

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions

Examples

• a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
  • We saw a good film last week.
  • Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
  • She finished her work at seven o'clock
  • I went to the theatre last night

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• an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago
  • People lived in caves a long time ago.
  • I saw her at the market the other day.

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• frequency: often, sometimes, always
  • I sometimes walked home at lunchtime.
  • I often brought my lunch to school.

Subject-Verb Agreement

Affirmative

• I drank...
• You drank...
• We drank...
• They drank...
• He drank...
• She drank...
• It drank...

Interrogative

• Did I drink...?
• Did you drink...?
• Did we drink...?
• Did they drink...?
• Did he drink...?
• Did she drink...?
• Did it drink...?

Negative

• I didn't drink...
  • I did not drink...
• You didn't drink...
  • You did not drink...
• We didn't drink...
  • We did not drink...
• They didn't drink...
  • They did not drink...
• He didn't drink...
  • He did not drink...
• She didn't drink...
  • She did not drink...
• It didn't drink...
  • It did not drink...