Past Tense Review

Let’s review the past tense!

Past tense is used to describe actions, events, or states that have already happened in the past. There are two main forms of past tense in English: regular and irregular verbs.

Regular Verbs: Regular verbs form the past tense by adding “-ed” to the base form of the verb. For example:

Base Form: walk
Past Tense: walked
Base Form: talk
Past Tense: talked
Base Form: play
Past Tense: played

Irregular Verbs: Irregular verbs do not follow the standard “-ed” rule. Instead, they have unique forms for the past tense. Here are some examples:

Base Form: go
Past Tense: went
Base Form: eat
Past Tense: ate
Base Form: see
Past Tense: saw

Using Past Tense: Past tense is used to talk about events or actions that have already taken place. Here are some examples of how it’s used in sentences:

I visited my grandmother last weekend.
She studied for the exam all night.
They played soccer yesterday.
He wrote a book last year.

Negative Form: To form the negative past tense, you generally use “didn’t” (short for “did not”) followed by the base form of the verb. For example:

I didn’t visit my grandmother last weekend.
She didn’t study for the exam.
They didn’t play soccer yesterday.
He didn’t write a book.

Question Form: To form questions in the past tense, you often start the sentence with the auxiliary verb “did” and follow it with the base form of the verb. For example:

Did you visit your grandmother last weekend?
Did she study for the exam?
Did they play soccer yesterday?
Did he write a book?

Signal Words: Certain words and phrases often indicate the use of past tense. Some common signal words include: yesterday, last week, in 2005, ago, etc.

Remember, while most verbs follow the regular pattern, there are quite a few irregular verbs in English that have unique past tense forms. It’s important to memorize these irregular forms to use them correctly.