Hi everyone! Welcome back. So today we're going to be talking about the simple past form. And this is the first in our 12 verb tense series. So, for today, we're just going to talk about simple past, its basic characteristics, its structures, sentence examples. And if you stick around to the end, we'll have a brief quiz to test your knowledge.
Alright, so let's get started. What is the simple past? Well, by definition, it is an activity or situation that began and ended at a particular time in the past.
Now the key point here is Particular time in the past. So, a lot of times you'll see specific time references used with the simple past. Now, maybe if somebody's speaking in dialogue, you know, everyone will understand the context. Maybe the person doesn't actually say the specific time reference, but it will be understood.
Same thing if you don't see it in a sentence. You know, but there will be context in, uh, in a sentence. The paragraph. So what do I mean by a specific time reference? Well, when did something happened? Okay, when did something happen? Was it Tuesday? Was it last week? Was it yesterday? Was it a few minutes ago?
An hour ago? Last year? Last month? Sunday? January? You know, those are specific time references. You can see in our example, I rode the bus yesterday. So, our verb is rode. It's in the simple past form, and it is an irregular verb. We'll talk about that in a moment. I rode the bus when? Yesterday. Yesterday is the specific time reference.
Now, a lot of times our verbs, you know, will be in regular form or irregular form. Regular form means it has the ed ending. Irregular. Well, the verb just changes its form completely, as in this example, road. The verb is ride, but simple past, road. An example of another regular verb would be walk. I walked home today.
I played soccer yesterday. I started classes last week. I enjoyed my trip to France last year. So you can see all of our verbs, regular verbs, end in ed. Now, another thing I just want to briefly point out, you notice the ed endings have different sounds. Sometimes the ed ending sounds like d, sometimes it sounds like t, or sometimes you hear the ed ending, id or ud.
There is a specific rule for the ed ending sounds and I'll give a more complete lesson on that in another video, but let me just give you a kind of a brief rule that you can remember, you can think about. So if the main, if the root word ends in a voiced consonant or a vowel sound, the ed ending sounds like, /d/ all right, so let's say the word is hug.
I hugged my sister goodbye. Okay. It's hugged, not hugg-ed. All right. I played soccer yesterday. Okay. Play ends in a vowel sound, you know, because it's voiced. So the ed sounds like d, played. I traveled to France. It rained yesterday. Now when the ed ending makes the t sound, it is because the root word ends in an unvoiced consonant.
For example, the word walk. Walked. Okay, you hear that ed makes the t sound. I walked home today. I stopped by Mary's house this morning. Stopped. I laughed at his joke. So those are some unvoiced consonant sounds. Now, when you hear the ed ending, such as id or ud, you know, in that extra, that syllable in there for ed, it's because, it's for words that end in the t or d sound.
For example, the word visit. I visited my friend last year. Um, wait, waited, land, landed, end, ended. Now back to some of our irregular verbs. There's quite a list in English of irregular verbs, so you can always look those up, but here are some examples of words that completely change their form. Of course, we saw ride changes to road, find.
Changes to found. I found my jacket yesterday. Um, leave changes to left. I left early this morning. And then the word hit really doesn't change. Sometimes we have words like that in American English. Bet, just stays bet. Okay, fit just stays fit. Hit stays hit. Okay, those don't really change. Read changes to read, same spelling.
Break changes to broke. So just keep the regular and irregular verb forms in mind when you're using the simple past form. Now you can also use the negative of not. For example, I didn't ride the bus yesterday. Okay. And of course, in American English, it's very common to use contracted forms. You know, we say, I did not ride the bus yesterday.
I didn't ride the bus yesterday. So notice how our verb changes. If we use the past tense form of did, I did not ride the bus home yesterday. So, our verb is no longer road, but did. It's ride, because we have a past tense form before that, did, okay, do, did. So we're not going to use two past tense forms together like that, okay.
We say, I did not ride the bus, I didn't play soccer yesterday, I didn't leave early in the morning, I didn't find my jacket at school yesterday, I didn't walk home today. All right, so just keep that in mind as well. When you use did, your verb form is in the simple tense and not the simple past, because you already have the simple past with did.
Now, here's another point I'd like to mention about the simple past. If the sentence contains when and has the simple past in both clauses, the action in the when clause, First happens first. For example, I spilled coffee on my laptop when I knocked over my cup. So, when I knocked over my cup, see it's in that clause that the action happened first.
First, I knocked over my cup, then my coffee spilled on my laptop. I looked out the window when I heard a strange noise. I heard the strange noise first. And then I looked out the window. We can also switch these clauses. When I heard a strange noise, I looked out the window. Okay, so, these clauses could be, you know, in either order.
So, just keep that in mind. In the when clause, that action happens first if you have the simple tent, the simple past in both clauses. So just a little something to keep in mind as well. So now we've come to the end of our simple past tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you found it helpful. Go ahead and take the quiz at the end and see what you remember.
Happy learning everyone. This quiz is in the video, but for the complete interactive version, click the link in the comment section below. Otherwise, grab a paper and pen, or you can just read along. So let's get started. Choose the simple past of ride. Ride, rided, road. Let's try road. Alright. What is the simple past of leave?
Leaved, left, leave. That would be left. Left. What is the simple past of begin? Began, begun, begin. That would be began.
Choose the specific time reference in this sentence. I enjoyed my trip to France last summer. Last summer enjoyed trip. So since we're talking about time, it would be last summer.
Again, choose the specific time reference in the following sentence. John packed his bags and left for the airport an hour ago. Left, an hour ago, and packed. So once again, time, we're looking at an hour ago. Choose the correct verb forms. I break my mother's vase when I throw the ball in the house. Okay, we're looking for simple past.
Broken through, braked and throwed, broke and this through. So past tense of throw is this one, T H R E W. Very good. What sound does the E D ending make in the following word? Listened. Listened. D.
What sound does the E D ending make in the following word? Missed. Missed.
T. You can hear that T at the end. Missed. Alright. Submit. And we got 100%. So, I hope you got all or most of these correct as you were following along. Happy learning, everyone!
