Past Simple - usage, formation, examples.

This lecture is on the past simple

the past simple is the basic form of the past tense in English past simple or simple past that the same thing past simple often uses finish time words such as last week two days ago yesterday.

Those sort of things and it doesn’t really matter how long ago things happened the duration is also not important and the simple past might look like a tense in your native language but be warned that the usage could well be different we use the simple past an English for completed actions that happened previously or completed states that happened previously or completed feelings that happened previously For news details for unlikely or impossible situations where we use the second conditional and for reported speech we form the past simple as follows four positive cases we take the subject and the verb and at a D and this is the regular case as in I liked ice cream.

Now please be aware there are many many irregular past forms the negative case we need to help a verb so subject plus did not plus infinitive without two so we didn’t like ice cream as a question we also need the help of verb to do did plus subjects plus infinitive without two as in did she like ice cream was a negative question did not plus subject plus infinitive without two as in didn’t he like ice cream some examples of completed actions that happened earlier I watched the film yesterday the Romans invaded Britain now you’ll notice the first example has the word yesterday in it as we mentioned at the start but the second example doesn’t and this is because events or actions that happened in history that are well known about don’t need to be reference with a timeframe well completed states that happened earlier her dog died last year or four certainly happier one.

The second child was born last week or completed feelings that happened earlier he never wanted children when he was a teenager as a child she wanted to be a ballet dancer again in those last two we have a time reference.

for news details so we can say we’ve been visiting family we stayed with my sister and uncle or I’ve just come back from a great holiday I went to Rome and Venice so the detailed part as in the second sentence of each of these examples we just used the past simple to flesh out the details of what we’ve just said.

we also use the past simple to form the second conditional This is used for unlikely or impossible situations.

For example if it wasn’t raining we would be playing outside but it is raining so we’re inside if I had more time I would do more sport well I don’t have more time and that’s my excuse you’ll see is the past simple for reported speech now if I remember and reported speech we always go back one tense from what the person said when we reported so if somebody said I like pizza when we report it we would say she said she liked pizza or if somebody says I play cricket when we report this we say he said he played cricket.