Past simple

There are many forms to speak about the past in English, but past simple is the most common way. We use Past simple to speak about complete actions in the past. The period of time of this actions is not important than in Spanish. In past simple there are regular and irregular verbs.

Grammatical Rules

Form

To form past simple with regular verbs, we use the infinitive and we add “-ed”. Is

the same way with all the pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they).

Examples:

want →     wanted

learn →     learned

stay →     stayed

walk →     walked

show →     showed

show →     showed

Exceptions:

1. Verbs finished in “e”, we add “-d”.

Examples:

change →     changed

believe →     believed

2. if the verb finished in a short vowel and a consonant (except “y” or “w”),we

double the final consonant.

Examples:

stop →     stopped

commit →     committed

3. verbs finished in a consonant and “y”, we change “y” for “i”.

Examples:

study →     studied

try →     tried

Verb Past simple

be    was (I, he, she, it)

   were (you, we, they)

do    did

have    had

Structure

1. Affirmative Sentences 

Pronoun + principal verb

Examples:

She was a doctor.

The keys were in the drawer.

I wanted to dance.

They learned English.

We believed him.

2. Negative Sentences

To be:

pronoun + auxiliary verb (to do) + “not” + principal verb

Examples:

She wasn’t a doctor.

The keys weren’t in the drawer.

The others verbs:

Sujeto + “to be” + “not”…

Examples:

I didn’t want to dance. (No quería bailar.)

He didn’t learn English. (No aprendieron inglés)

They didn’t believe him.