This document discusses the simple past tense in English. It provides examples of how to form the simple past of regular and irregular verbs. It also outlines the rules for forming affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentences in the simple past. Specifically, it explains that the simple past is used to describe completed actions in the past and involves using the past tense form of verbs. It also notes the use of the auxiliary "did" in interrogative and negative constructions.

1. República Bolivariana de Venezuela
Ministry of Popular Power for Higher Education
I.U.P “Santiago Mariño”
Chair: English I
Simple Past
Member:
Pedro Rafael Lárez Cuárez
C.I:29582056
Professor:
Cesar Velasquez
July 15, 2020

2. It is a verb tense that is used to describe
actions that have happened in a past
tense and that have already ended, for
example:
A) She cleaned her house.
B) I broke the window.
Both in the interrogative and in the
negative form it is used as an
auxiliary DID what is the past form of
the verb “TO DO” and it accompanies
the main verb in its infinitive form.
When expressing a sentence
in the Simple Past it is
understood that the action is
not related to the present,
as we see in the following
case:
She lent me a book (It may
have already been returned).
Simple Past

3. Characteristics of the simple past
1) Indicates the action performed at a specific moment in
the past.
2) The main verb of the sentence is always in the past
tense.
3) It has a simple composition of "subject and predicate
verb".
4) It is the only grammatical tense that uses verbs in
the past tense.
5) In the predicate expressions that determine the time
of the sentence can be used, although it will always be
the verb that indicates whether or not the sentence is in
the past tense.

4. use of the simple past
The simple past has several uses. Let's see some:
1) It is used to talk about actions that were
done in the past and that have already ended.
2) It can be used to describe a series of
actions in the past.
3) You can use it to talk about repeated or
habitual actions in the past.
4) To talk about generalities or facts of the past.
5) It is used for narrations or actions that
occur over long periods of time.

5. ¿What are regular verbs?
Are the simplest to conjugate since their spelling in simple
past or past participle is the same as in the present tense
by adding a "d" or "ed." at the end.
For example:
Arrive/ arrived , Call/ Called.
If the verb ends in a consonant + "y", we change the "y" to
"i" and add "ed".
For example:
Marry/ Married, Study/ Studied.
If the verb ends in "e", we simply add a "d".
For example:
Hate/ Hated, Like/ Liked
Regular verbs

6. ¿What are irregular verbs?
They are those that do not follow the basic rule since each
one has its form in infinitive, past and participle.
Irregular verbs can have different endings that we group
briefly like this:
Verbs whose past tense and participle are the same:
Dormir: sleep, slept, slept
Verbs with exactly the same forms:
Cortar: cut, cut, cut
Verbs with totally different forms:
Escribir: write, wrote, written
Irregular verbs

7. Simple Past Affirmation
When we are going to make an affirmation with the simple past
we need to follow the formula:
Subject + verb in simple past tense + complement
Examples:
Did they live in Washington?
Did the dog play with the ball?
Simple Past Denial
To deny something in the past, the formula we use is a little
different. This time we are going to make use of the Did
auxiliary.
Subject + did not (didn’t) + main verb in infinitive + predicate
Examples:
They didn’t live in Washington
The dog didn’t play with the ball

8. Affirmative Interrogation in Simple Past
For an interrogation in the past we have to use the Did
auxiliary. Follow the formula:
Did + subject + main verb in infinitive + complement
Examples:
Did they live in Washington?
Did the dog play with the ball?
Negative Simple Past Interrogation
Negative interrogations are used when the person who is
speaking wants to express surprise or wants to assume
something. In this case we can use the following formulas:
Informal: Didn’t + subject + main verb in infinitive +
complement
Formal: Did + subject + not + main verb in infinitive +
complement

9. Answers to interrogative sentences
A sentence that begins with the Did auxiliary only supports 2
types of answer: YES or No. They must therefore follow the
following form:
If the answer is yes: Yes, S + Did.
Where, Yes equals S; S, is the subject of the sentence;
Did is the helper we use to ask.
If the answer is negative: No, S + did not.
Where, No equals No; S is the subject of the sentence;
Didn't, is the negative form of the helper we use to ask.
Examples
Did Nancy eat bread? Yes, she did/ No, she Didn’ t.
Did they live in Madrid? Yes, they did/ No, they didn’ t.