Simple Past

The simple past or past simple, sometimes called the preterite, is the basic form of the past tense in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular English verbs form the simple past in -ed; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms.

The term "simple" is used to distinguish the syntactical construction whose basic form uses the plain past tense alone, from other past tense constructions which use auxiliaries in combination with participles, such as the past perfect and past progressive.

Regular verbs form the simple past in -ed; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms.

Questions, other clauses requiring inversion, negations with not, and emphatic forms of the simple past use the auxiliary did. For details of this mechanism, see do-support. A full list of forms is given below, using the (regular) verb help as an example:

• Basic simple past:
  • I/you/he/she/it/we/they helped
• Expanded (emphatic) simple past:
  • I/you/he/she/it/we/they did help
• Question form:
  • Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they help?
• Negative:
  • I/you/he/she/it/we/they did not (didn't) help?
• Negative question:
  • Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they not help? / Didn't I/you/he/she/it/we/they help?

FORM

[VERB+ed] or irregular verbs

Examples:

• You called Debbie.
• Did you call Debbie?
• You did not call Debbie.

Use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind.

Examples:

• I saw a movie yesterday.
• I didn't see a play yesterday.
• Last year, I traveled to Japan.
• Last year, I didn't travel to Korea.
• Did you have dinner last night?
• She washed her car.
• He didn't wash his car.

We use the Simple Past to list a series of completed actions in the past. These actions happen 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on.

Examples:

• I finished work, walked to the beach, and found a nice place to swim.
• He arrived from the airport at 8:00, checked into the hotel at 9:00, and met the others at 10:00.
• Did you add flour, pour in the milk, and then add the eggs?

The Simple Past can also be used to describe a habit which stopped in the past. It can have the same meaning as "used to." To make it clear that we are talking about a habit, we often add expressions such as: always, often, usually, never, when I was a child, when I was younger, etc.

Examples:

• I studied French when I was a child.
• He played the violin.
• He didn't play the piano.
• Did you play a musical instrument when you were a kid?
• She worked at the movie theater after school.
• They never went to school, they always skipped class.