Past Simple

Hello! This video is about the past simple. Some people call it the simple past, mostly in North America, but when I learned it, I learned past simple, so that’s what I’m going to call it. It doesn’t matter; it’s the same thing. First we’re going to take a look at the form, which is how to make the past simple, and then we’re going to look at the function, which is how to use it. We’re going to spend a lot of time talking about the form, but actually, the function – how to use the past simple – is what matters more. At the end of this video, I have a quiz for you, so make sure you stick around for that. Let’s get started. All right, let’s start by looking at the form of the past simple. Now we’re going to start by looking at regular verbs. Well most verbs simply take an ED, but that’s not the only choice; sometimes there’s just a D and sometimes there’s an I-E-D. So we’ll take a look at some examples for each of these possibilities. So when the word ends in an E we don’t add an E-D, we just need to add a D, so bake becomes baked, smile becomes smiled, free – which might look a little bit different because there’s two E’s – doesn’t matter, we just add a D. When words end with Y, we have to change things a little bit. The Y becomes an I and then we add E-D, so try becomes tried, cry becomes cried, and bury – or bury – becomes buried or buried. You can say that word both ways. Most people have one way they like to say it, and they will tell you that anything else is wrong. No, it’s not; there are two perfectly acceptable ways to say that word. Anyway, let’s keep moving. So, what about everything else? Well, easy we just add E-D. Laugh becomes laughed, fill becomes filled, boil becomes boiled. Easy, right? Not so fast. There’s actually a few other things to think about. When there’s a short vowel and then a consonant, we have to double the final consonant, so tap we see T-A-P, that A is a short A – a – and then there’s a P, so we have to double the P. So. tapped. If we don’t double the P, if we just add E-D, then it becomes “taped” so that’s why we have to do it. Beg becomes begged, rub becomes rubbed. Okay, so are we finished now? No, remember these are only the regular verbs. Let’s take a look at some irregular verbs. There are a few categories of irregular verbs and once you know the categories, it doesn’t seem so complicated; there’s less to remember. So the easiest one is there simply no change, so beat becomes beat. We beat to the drum every Wednesday. That’s the present simple. He beat the drum last Wednesday. That’s the past simple. Change the middle vowel. Become changes to became, begin changes to began, and choose changes to chose. This is one that a lot of people learning English have trouble with, so if the verb you are trying to change – I’m sorry – if the verb that you are using is this type of irregular, remember to change the vowel, and again, it’s in the middle of the word, This last one that we looked at here, this choose and chose, this is something that even native speakers have trouble with, which I don’t understand – it’s not that complicated! Anyway, let’s keep going. Sometimes it’s just completely different. So am, is, our becomes was or were and have or has becomes had. Okay, let’s look at some positive sentences. So positive sentences, or affirmative sentences, we make like this. We have the subject: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and then we put the verb in the past. So baked, filled, cried. Negative sentences… we do something to the verb, so the verb changes and what was here – that E-D – it moves, and it goes over here to this auxiliary verb. So baked, when we have a negative, is did not bake, and of course also don’t forget to put the negation marker, the “not” okay? All right and one other thing that we can do here, is we can make a contraction, so did not gets put together into one word: didn’t. One thing that people sometimes have trouble with is where to put the apostrophe and it goes between the N and the T. You can think of it as the O changing to an apostrophe; sometimes people put that in the wrong spot. So now for yes/no questions. We add “did” now I probably – well, not probably – I definitely should have put this as a capital D because it’s the beginning of the sentence, but it’s just you and me, so we understand what I meant. So did you bake did she cry etc etc. WH questions: it’s the same thing, except we add the question word to the beginning. So, where did you fill? What did you bake? Okay? So that’s the form; we will now look at the function, which is how to use the past simple. We use the past simple for events that happened, and that are completed – that finished – in the past, so if I’m going to make a diagram like this, this is where things happen in the past simple: before now, okay? So we see over here is past, so before now, and they’re over. I’ll just move that out of the way. Take a look at some examples. I opened my birthday presents. We arrived. They ate the eggs. Now in none of these sentences do I say when it is. What people will understand that these actions are completely over. Now to make it a little bit clearer, I can add a second part here. I opened my birthday presents this morning. This morning is now over. We arrived last night. Last night is obviously over. They ate the eggs yesterday. Yesterday is also obviously over. So again, we use the past simple for actions that are in the past and that finished in the past. I will bring this back and we’ll take a look here. We also use the past simple – this is important – to tell stories in this direction. In other words, that are going forward through time. There is a way in English to go backwards through time, but that is not with the past simple, and we’ll see that later. Okay, I have some questions I would like you to look at, and I want you to tell me if these sentences are correct or not, and then I want you to tell me why. Just before I bring the questions up, I want to remind you that we are looking at these sentences in the context of the past simple, so please remember that. Okay, take a look at these, pause the video, and decide if these are correct or incorrect, and if they are incorrect, why? What needs to change? Okay, pause the video now. Okay, let’s go through the answers. So if we look down the left side, you can see that some are correct, some are not correct, and then number three is a little bit confusing, but we’ll talk about that. So let’s start first of all number one: She walk in the forest sometimes. Again, we are looking at this in the context of the past simple, so in the past simple, She walk? No, she walked. Number two: We liked to eat a lot… and we still do – I do anyway! That’s correct, so we can leave that. Number three. This might be a little bit confusing, because it’s marked both correct and incorrect. So, it is correct. Maybe it would be better to say it’s not wrong – He did drink water – I can say that in English, and I haven’t talked about that until now. You may have heard something like that. It is correct. I can say He did drink water, but I would not normally say that. I would normally say drink is an irregular verb – changes the vowel in the middle – I would normally say he drank water. Well, when do I say he did drink water? I could say he did drink water when I want to emphasize the fact that it happened. So I would say, He did drink water! So we could say, for example, you know: Oh! He’s too dehydrated; he just needs to to drink some water. He did drink water! He’s not dehydrated; he’s sick! Okay? So it’s not wrong, but it’s also not the best answer, unless you have a specific reason for making your sentence look like that. Jean is taller than Frank. Well, it’s a good sentence, but not in the past simple, and this is one of the things that people do: they mean the past, but they write in the present, so don’t do that! Jean was taller than Frank. Tom and Jim walked to school together. No problem. My brothers don’t like football. Again, this is like number four; it’s a correct sentence: My brothers don’t like football – but it’s in the wrong tense. We want these sentences to be in the past simple, not the present simple. Number seven is the wrong verb form. They had fun. Number eight is the wrong verb altogether. Those hamburgers are – I’m sorry those hamburgers were good. All right, what about number nine? Well, I’ve learned from number three, so I know that this is okay. It might not be the best way, but I know that it’s okay. No, it’s not, because this is also here, so now I have two different pieces of grammar here, two different signs, that this is in the past simple, and I can’t do that. One or the other, okay. Both? No. So, learned would be the normal way of writing that. Did learn, okay, but only if you have a special reason. And number 10: The book was interesting. That was correct. Okay, so how did you do? If you’d like some more practice, take a look below the video. I’ve prepared some other exercises for you. That’s all for today. Thank you very much!