The Past Simple
English has one main past tense and it is refreshingly simple: the form is identical for every person. I went, you went, she went, they went.
The catch is that roughly 200 common verbs are irregular, and there's no rule — they have to be learned individually.
Vocabulary
- worked
- regular: work + -ed
- lived
- regular: live + -d
- studied
- regular: y → ied
- stopped
- regular: double the consonant
- went
- irregular: go
- ate
- irregular: eat
- saw
- irregular: see
- did
- irregular: do
- said
- irregular: say
- yesterday
- the day before today
- last night
- the previous evening
- two weeks ago
- counting back from now
Example Phrases
Yesterday I ate at a restaurant.
A finished action at a stated time
What did you do at the weekend?
Question form uses did + base verb
I didn't say anything.
Negative uses didn't + base verb
She went home early.
Same form for every person
We arrived two hours late.
Regular -ed ending
Grammar note
did takes the past away from the main verb
In questions and negatives, **did** carries the tense and the main verb returns to its base form: Did you **go**? (not did you went). I didn't **eat** (not I didn't ate).
This is the single most common past-tense error at A2, and it's very audible. If did or didn't is in the sentence, the main verb must be plain.
Grammar note
The -ed ending has three sounds
Worked ends /t/, lived ends /d/, and wanted ends /ɪd/. The spelling never changes; only the sound does.
The /ɪd/ sound appears only after t or d (wanted, needed, decided). Pronouncing every -ed as a separate syllable is a strong marker of a learner accent.