Grammar Reference

 

8.1 ■ Past simple: affirmative

Affirmative
I You He / She / It We They	lived	20,000 years ago.

Spelling rules

• Most regular verbs: add -ed
• Regular verbs ending in -e: add -d
• Short regular verbs ending in consonant + vowel + consonant: double final consonant and add -ed
• Regular verbs ending consonant + -y: change -y to -ied

Use

We use the past simple for:

• a completed past action or a past state. We often use it with expressions that show when things happened, such as yesterday, … ago, when I was a child, in April / in 2008, last night / last week / last month / last year, etc.
  The girls played football with their friends yesterday.
  We travelled from Kazakhstan to Kenya last year.
• a past habit, often with an adverb of frequency or a time expression, such as every week / every Monday / every summer / every year.
  We usually walked to the sports centre after school.
  They phoned their uncle every Monday.
• a sequence of actions in the past.
  He smiled at the girl and then disappeared.

8.2 ■ Past simple affirmative: irregular verbs

• Many verbs have irregular past simple forms, for example, have → had, know → knew, teach → taught.

Common irregular past simple verbs
become buy catch come do eat find get give go grow have hear	became bought caught came did ate found got gave went grew had heard	know leave make meet put run see sing teach think understand wear write	knew left made met put ran saw sang taught thought understood wore wrote

8.3 ■ Past simple: negative and questions

Past simple: negative form

Negative
I You He / She / It We They	didn’t (= did not) study	German at school.

• We form the negative of regular and irregular verbs with didn’t + infinitive without to.

Past simple: questions and short answers

Yes / No questions and short answers
Did	I you he / she / it we they	understand the homework?	Yes, I did. No, we didn’t.
Wh- questions
Where Who	did	I you he / she / it we they	go? see?

• We make past simple yes / no questions with: Did + subject + infinitive + ?
• We make past simple wh- questions with: Question word + did + subject + infinitive + ?