Past simple

Lesson 2

I worked
We worked
You worked
You worked
He/she/it worked
They worked

 

Negatives
I didn’t work
We didn’t work
You didn’t work
You didn’t work
He didn’t work
They didn’t work

 

Question
Did I work?
Did we work?
Did you work?
Did you work?
Did he work?
Did they work?

 

When we want to speak in the past, we put –ed at the end of a verb. For example helped, wanted, started, prepared, opened. This grammar is called the past simple.

There are some verbs which have their special form for the past simple. There are only 53 of these verbs which you need for Level 2. The verbs are

ate, beat, became, bought, broke, built, came, cut, did, drank, fell, felt, flew, forgot, found, gave, got, grew, had, heard, hid, hit, knew, learnt, left, let, lost, made, met, paid, put, ran, read, said, sang, sat, saw, sent, shot, sold, spent, spoke, stood, swam, taught, thought, told, took, understood, went, woke up, won, wrote.

We use the past simple in about 11% of sentences in spoken English.

Examples

The first night, I slept on the sand. I thought that no people were around me. But then a little voice woke me up. I looked around. I saw a little man. This is the picture of the little man.

You can see more examples in the book The Little Prince.

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