Simple Past

OK so we’ll start from the simplest thing.

How we talk about something in the past when something happened before it’s done it’s finished and we don’t really care about maybe the details of it happening before.

Another thing that happened.

There’s just something that’s that’s finished.

We use what we call the simple past.

And when we do this we need to change verbs into the past tense.

The only thing that’s really hard about this is knowing that sometimes you add e d to words and sometimes you don’t.

And the best way to learn that is to just see many examples and get the feeling for it.

So make sure when you’re watching movies or reading you pay attention to the different ways that verbs are changed into the past tense.

But anyway just a couple of very simple examples I think you probably already know this.

So we’ll we’ll keep it really really basic.

OK.

Actually you know what’s the hardest part about this.

The hardest part I find with students who are learning English is remembering to do it.

For example maybe a student will say I run to the store I run to the store.

And then if I say you said I run to the store then the student will say I said run to the store I should have said I ran to the store and then I’ll say But you didn’t you said I run to the store and they go Oh.

So actually the tough part for many learners of English is not knowing you know that ran that ran is the past tense for run and you probably know that.

But when you’re speaking you’re thinking about a lot of different things at the same time.

Which words should I use.

What things should be in the past and what things should not.

How do I fit this whole sentence together.

What am I going to talk about next.

And because you have so many things going on at the same time it’s easy to make a mistake.

So when you’re speaking you have to be very careful you have to pay attention to what’s coming out of your mouth.

If to hear yourself and try to catch it and correct it right away.

And if you do that you can get into the habit of saying it the right way.

If you’re always correcting yourself after you say it because you said the wrong thing and you heard yourself say it that’s the first step then change it corrected.

Then you can start doing it in your head.

You can start doing it in your head then you’re OK.

You’re expressing it correctly.

OK.

So I really pay attention.

Slow down when you’re speaking not worry about speaking very quickly.

You don’t have to speak quickly speak slowly and listen be aware of yourself awareness awareness.

Today is the day where I’m breaking words and half.

Awareness is the key to changing habits.

And one of the one of the worst speaking habits for English learners is not changing very simple verbs into the past tense.

So awareness is the key to changing speaking habits.

So remember that for everything but especially for this lesson.

OK.

So some examples.

Take walk.

OK.

Walk is E.D.

OK.

This is a regular one so to make walk the past tense we just add E.D.

No problem.

Very easy.

I it’s super easy I walked I walked to work yesterday.

Piece of cake.

That means something is very easy right.

It’s a piece of cake.

I walked to work yesterday.

Change that to E.D.

and we’re fine.

No problem.

OK.

How about find is find find it.

No it’s not.

So this one is not regular E.D.

This is what we would call irregular irregular.

So this would be found.

All right.

I found this in my car.

Pretty simple pretty simple.

It’s the same as saying I find this in my car.

The only difference is that we’ve changed into the past tense.

We’ve changed the verb into the past tense.

Everything else is the same.

Doesn’t need to be changed.

Pretty pretty simple.

OK let’s just do let’s just do one more really really quick example.

Wait wait.

All right.

That’s a regular one.

That’s E.D.

So but this one pronunciation we don’t say wait or something like that we say waited.

It’s very clearly pronounced as ID because of the T sound.

If you don’t know how to use the E.D.

pronunciation then you need to watch one of my other courses about pronunciation to to know how to say that correctly.

And other E.D.

sounds.

Anyway let’s look at the example then I waited and a lot of people will pronounce this as waited waited.

It’s almost a d sound waited I waited I waited all morning for the call I waited all morning I waited all morning for the call.

Pretty simple.

OK.

Why is it simple past.

Why is it this one why is it waited instead of another one because it’s finished.

It’s a thing that happened.

Now it’s done.

We don’t have to worry about its relationship to other things that happened and so we just use this one.

It’s pretty simple OK.

Now I hope you have a pretty clear idea about how to use the simple past.

It’s really just a warm up.

Let’s get into some of the more complicated stuff.

Some of the more difficult and juicy bits of past tense.

This is where it hopefully gets a little bit more interesting.

So let’s let’s get started on that.