Past Simple

Meaning

The Past Simple tense expresses verbs that started and finished in the past. While Past Continuous focuses on duration and perfect tenses focus on the aftermath of the verb, Past Simple is a flexible category that includes just about every other past action, event, or state.

Structure

Regular Past Verbs

The structure of the Past Simple tense requires the main verb to be in its past form, at least when no auxiliary verbs are included, as with most affirmative statements. The past form of the vast majority of verbs features the -ed suffix.

Some past verbs require further considerations for their spelling:

Verbs that already end with an ‘e’ do not need a second ‘e’ in their suffix. (eg: lived, served)
Verbs that end with a ‘y’ following a consonant should change that ‘y’ to an ‘i’. (eg: carried, studied)
Most single-syllable verbs with a single vowel followed by a single consonant should double that consonant before adding the suffix. (eg: dropped, planned)

Furthermore, we pronounce the suffix slightly differently depending on the sounds that come just before it:

The suffix should be pronounced /ed/ (forming its own syllable) when following a ‘d’ or ‘t’ at the end of the base word. (eg: exploded, wanted)
The suffix should be pronounced /t/ when following ‘ch’, ‘f’, ‘k’, ‘p’, ‘s’, ‘sh’, ‘x’ or ‘z’ sounds at the end of the base word. (eg: fixed, passed, smacked)
The suffix should be pronounced /d/ otherwise. (eg: continued, happened, received)

Irregular Past Verbs

Some verbs do not add the conventional -ed ending for their past, but instead take on some other form. These are called irregular verbs. Some of the most common verbs in the English language are irregular, including:

begin (began) • break (broke) • bring (brought) • buy (bought) • choose (chose) • come (came) • cost (cost) • draw (drew) • drink (drank) • eat (ate) • feel (felt) • find (found) • get (got) • give (gave) • go (went) • hold (held) • know (knew) • let (let) • make (made) • meet (met) • ride (rode) • say (said) • see (saw) • sing (sang) • sit (sat) • sleep (slept) • stand (stood) • take (took) • tell (told) • think (thought) • wake (woke) • win (won) • write (wrote)

Irregular verbs can undergo one of a few possible morphological changes from the present to their past forms, including taking on different endings, changing their vowel sounds, both, or something different. A few verbs don’t actually change their forms at all.

See the Irregular Verbs page for more details on how irregulars work, along with a full list of irregular verbs.

With Auxiliaries

For negatives and interrogatives, the verb phrase might need an auxiliary verb. If no modals are included, then we use DO for certain roles like hosting negators or starting questions. For past clauses, DO should take on its past form: ‘did’. The main verb that follows must then be in its base form.

“They didn’t guess correctly.”, not “~~They didn’t guessed correctly.~~“
“Did you go to the concert?”, not “Did you went to the concert?“

When there are modal auxiliaries — whether for interrogative, negative, or even affirmative clauses — then the following main verb should be in its base form (eg: “We could see for miles!”, not “~~We could saw for miles!~~“).

Usage

Past Actions/Events

We use the Past Simple tense to communicate actions or events that occurred before now. When we use the Past Simple in this way, it considers the verb from a wholistic viewpoint (instead of narrowing in precise moments, or focusing on the lasting aftermath). It can, however, accompany details such as how many times the verb was done or the output of an action.

The Past Simple is used for one-time occurrences. For example:

“The Hendersons traveled to the Mediterranean for their vacation last year.”
“Yesterday, I saw a celebrity at the airport!”
“The last time Halley’s Comet passed by Earth was in 1986.”
“Grandma and Grandpa wrote fifty-three letters to each other over that summer.”

The Past Simple is also used for repeated occurrences. For example:

“Abigail went to summer camp every year until she turned 18.”
“Tristan won Employee of the Year six times before he retired.”

Finished States

We also use the Past Simple tense for states that took place in the past and do not continue into the present. While actions and events might be continuous depending on their duration relative to the context, Stative Verbs are rarely expressed in a continuous tense. Therefore, finished Stative Verbs should be in the Past Simple tense by default. For example:

“The little girl’s eyes were bright blue.”
“Bennet lived in Germany for twenty years.”
“When I was young, movie and a popcorn only cost $5.”

The states don’t need to be confirmed as finished before the present moment, so long as they are no longer relevant. For example, if the speaker tells a story about meeting a fascinating young girl and mentions her eye color (as in the example above), the speaker would still use the Past Simple even if they don’t know whether the girl’s eyes are just as bright now that she’s grown up.

Advanced Concepts

vs. Past Continuous

A past action or event may be continuous or not depending on its duration relative to the scope of the context. We use Past Simple for verbs that occur wholly within our past time frame. The Past Continuous tense, on the other hand, is used for verbs that occur during our time frame, but also extend beyond the limits of our time frame.

For example:

Past Simple: “We ate cake at the party.” (the entire process of eating began after the party began and finished before the party finished)
Past Continuous: “Janita was still dancing when the party ended.” (dancing continued beyond the time frame of the party)

Part of the difference here is that dancing took longer than eating. But perhaps more importantly is the scope of each of those actions in relation to the context (the party). Therefore, when the context changes, the tenses might need to change as well:

“We were eating cake when the host made his big announcement.”
“Janita danced yesterday at the party.”

vs. Present Perfect

A verb expressed in the Past Simple tense simply regards the action, state, or event itself. We can instead use the Present Perfect tense for past verbs to highlight that the effect of that verb carries on into the present.

For example:

“Olive saw Taylor Swift in concert again last week.” — focuses on that particular instance
“Olive has seen Taylor Swift in concert seven times so far.” — focuses on the accumulation of experiences that Olive has now

Or:

“Billy washed his hands five minutes ago.” — focuses on that particular instance
“Billy has just washed his hands.” — focuses on the result: that Billy’s hands are clean now.

In each of these cases, the reality of the situation doesn’t change — only what the speaker chooses to focus on.

Past Modals

Modal verbs do not have traditional past forms, but there are two ways a modal can indicate the past tense:

For modals of ability, could is used for past instead of can. For dispositional modals, would is used for past habits.
Distal modals can be followed by ‘have’ to indicate the past. These can also come in contracted forms. (could have, must’ve, should have, etc.)
- A main verb that follows any of these should be in its Perfect Participle form.
The pseudo-modal used to (for habits) is only ever past.

See the Unreal Past page for more.

Teaching Tips

The 1 Blue Verb Rule

Insights to English has developed the One Blue Verb Rule to help learners keep track of past verbs in a clause. Here’s the grammar behind our rule:

When there is only a main verb in the verb phrase (i.e. there are no auxiliary verbs), that main verb should take on its past form.
When there are auxiliary verbs, the leading auxiliary should be in its past form, but the main verb should not.
Either way, there should only be one verb in its past form: either the main verb or an auxiliary, but not both.

To communicate this idea, write the past verb in blue, and ask students to do the same (whereas all other words are black). Sentences should either have a blue main verb or a blue auxiliary, but not both. If a student notices two blue words in their verb phrase, then something is wrong. Similarly, if the student notices zero blue verbs, then the verb phrase does not communicate a past tense.

This is helpful for developing consistency with the Past Simple tense, but it also sets the groundwork for all other past tenses.

Introducing Irregular Verbs

Irregular verbs are important to introduce to learners early on because they include some of the most common words in English (and which are some of the earliest words that English students learn). However, you want to be careful not to overwhelm students.

It’s common for early learners to be shown a standard list of irregular verbs, but this is a problem because a) these lists tend to contain so many words, it’s challenging for students to wrap their heads around them, never mind memorize them; and b) these lists usually also include Perfect Participles, which students probably haven’t been introduced to yet.

Instead, we recommend sharing a trimmed drown list for beginners. This list should have fewer verbs — say, 40 to 60 are the most common ones — and should not include participles. Insights to English has created such a list that you can download from the main website.

Insider Access

Visit our How to Teach The 1 Blue Verb Rule page on www.insightstoEnglish.com for a demonstrational video, bonus notes, printouts, a slideshow for your class, practice activities, and more.

English Grammar Encyclopedia for Educators