PAST SIMPLE TENSE – Easy Grammar, Real Examples & Pronunciation

Today, we are going to look at the past simple tense. This is one of the most common and important tenses you need to know. We use the past simple every day in almost every conversation. Are you ready? My name is Arnel. Let's start. Verb 1, verb 2, verb 3. Walk, walked, walked. Study, studied, studied. Laugh, laughed, laughed. Eat, ate, eaten. Go, went, gone. Swim, swam, swum. Why are these verbs the same? And the bottom three verbs are different. Well, the top three verbs are called regular verbs. Regular verbs are simple because verbs 2 and 3 end with ED. 90% of verbs in English are regular verbs. That's good news. The bottom three verbs are called irregular verbs because all three forms are different. Yes, you need to memorize irregular verbs. If you want a PDF list of 131 irregular verbs of English, just click the link in the video description and it will be sent directly to your inbox so you can review them later. I know, 131 is a lot. So I made a list of the first 50 irregular verbs you need to memorize. Start with this list. When we form the past simple, we need verb 2. Let's do a few examples. I walked, you walked, he, she, it walked, we walked, they walked. I went, you went, he, she, it went. He, she, it wents? No, only verb 2. We went, they went. Let's do one more verb. I bought, you bought. All the same. Things change in the negative. Subject did not plus verb 1. Yes, we need verb 1 here. Why? Because did is already the past. We don't want double past. I did not walk, you did not walk, he, she, it did not walk. Let's sound natural and contract. We didn't walk, they didn't walk. Common mistake. I didn't walked, she didn't went, they didn't worked. Walk, go, work. Remember, no double past. Question form. Did subject verb 1. Again, verb 1. Did I improve? Did you improve? Did he improve? Again, we don't say, did she improved? Remember, be is a bit different. You know the present forms. I am, you are, etc. And we have the past forms. I was, you were, he, she, it was, we were, they were. Positive. I was 20 minutes late. You were 20 minutes late. Negative. I was not, wasn't 20 minutes late. You were not, weren't 20 minutes late. I did not was 20 minutes late. No. Question. Was I 20 minutes late? Were you 20 minutes late? Did you are 20 minutes late? No. I have four sentences here. Let's do the first one together. Dylan played the xylophone. Xylophone. A xylophone is this instrument. Okay. Dylan didn't play the xylophone. Did? Did Dylan play the xylophone? I want you to pause the lesson and complete the other three sentences. Cassandra won a gold medal. Cassandra didn't win a gold medal. Did not. Did Cassandra win a gold medal? I wrote the wrong date. I didn't write the wrong date. Did I? Did I write the wrong date? I fell asleep at midnight. I did not fall asleep at midnight. Did I fall asleep at midnight? Grammar structures done. Let's move on to why we use the past simple. Remember, we use the present simple for things we do every day. Now, in the present, I wake up at seven every morning. We take this idea and move it to the past. I woke up at seven every morning. Do I wake up at seven now? No. In the past. When I was a teenager, I wore a lot of rings. Do I wear a lot of rings now? No. In the past. Lin always drank chamomile tea at our desk. Chamomile tea is tea made from this flower. It's really popular. Does Lin do this now? You can see. Repeated past habits. Waking up, wearing rings, drinking tea. These are all things we can repeat. We can do these things every day. Does it need to be every day? No, but there needs to be a repetition. My family went to Lake Tahoe every summer. Every summer was the same. I walked my neighbor's dog on Saturdays. Every Saturday was the same. But what if I'm not talking about actions? I'm talking about situations. I live in Arizona. Do I live in Arizona now? No. Past situation. Tyler had a golden retriever. A golden retriever is this type of dog breed. Really popular. Does Tyler have this dog now? Unfortunately, no. Charlotte was my best friend in 11th grade. Here are all the sentences so far. With the past simple, we usually give a specific time. What do I mean? We need to say when. When I was a teenager, that's specific. In 11th grade, again, that's a specific past time. We know when. But the other sentences don't have a specific time. We can add one. In January, I woke up at 7 every morning. I was taking a course and I had to wake up at 7. I lived in Arizona from 2015 to 2020. When you hear the past simple, maybe the specific time isn't in the same sentence, but it will be somewhere in the conversation. If the past simple were a person, it would be Ms. Checklist. She checks off everything that is done, finished. She doesn't need to think about these things anymore. I packed my bags this morning. I canceled my flight last Tuesday. My team won the competition in October. The first iPhone was released in 2007. All done. In January, I woke up at 7 every morning. I woke up at 7 yesterday morning. Tim and Jude met every Wednesday to play tennis. Tim and Jude met at 4 to play tennis. The first examples are habits. Remember things we can repeat. And the second examples are one-time actions. Yes, the past simple can also be used for a single completed action. Super common. I had a tuna sandwich for lunch. Done. Brian wasn't at the meeting on Monday. Did you buy a washer and dryer? This means a washing machine and a dryer for clothes. Common mistake. How was your morning? Good. I wake up at 9, drink coffee, and watch YouTube. This seems like a really obvious mistake, but even advanced students sometimes forget the past simple. If it's the past, it's finished. I woke up at 9, drank coffee, watched YouTube. Mini review. Repetition. Every winter the lake froze. Now it doesn't. It's not cold enough. Situation. People were shorter in the past. Now, in general, people are taller. One-time action. I passed my test. With the past simple, we can put the specific time in the same sentence or somewhere in the conversation. Have you ever gone horseback riding? Yes, two summers ago. My family went to Wyoming, and we went to this traditional cowboy-style camp. We rode horses every day. No way, that sounds like so much fun. It was. We had a wonderful time. The only part I didn't like was cleaning out the stalls. I began the conversation with the present perfect. You can review the present perfect in the earlier part of the series. I have my past simple. Why? Because I'm speaking about a specific time. Two summers ago. The rest of the conversation continues in the past simple because now it's clear I mean two years ago. Specific time. Let's keep going. I slept really well. This could be a past habit, or you had one good night. We don't know. The context will tell you. But if you want to make it clear that something was a habit in the past and is not true now, you can use used to. Used to. I used to sleep well. Now I don't. I used to play tennis. Now I don't. Gabby used to live next door. Now she doesn't. Look at my verbs. Used to is a past habit, and it is followed by verb one. What's the opposite? How can I express a present habit that wasn't true in the past? I didn't used to sleep well. Now I do. I didn't used to play tennis. Now I'm a pro. Gabby didn't used to live next door. Now she does. Look at the spelling. In the negative, we drop the letter D. Your turn. Complete each sentence with your own example. I used to... I didn't used to... With the positive and negative structures, adding D is only important in writing. When we are speaking, they sound the same. Used to... So when you're speaking, don't worry about it. Let's end this lesson with pronunciation. I'm going to bring up a list of past simple verbs. You can see these are all regular verbs. In this part, we don't need to look at irregular verbs like ate or swam. A lot of students think ED is always pronounced ED. It's not. There are three ways we can pronounce ED. Okay, right now, you might be like this. But this part of the lesson is to help you understand English pronunciation. You don't need to memorize everything today. If the verb ends in a sound like... You can see laugh ends with the F sound. With these sounds, the past simple ends with the T sound. Now, if the verbs end in a sound like... Like you peel potatoes. Live. Describe. Hug. Play. Study. Snow. Continue. The past simple ends with the D sound. Peeled. Cleaned. Lived. Described. Hugged. Played. Studied. Snowed. Continued. If a verb already ends in the T or D sound, we pronounce ED. Want. Wanted. Need. Needed. Start. Started. Decide. Decided. You can hear that ED adds an extra syllable. If you want a list of common words that follow these pronunciation rules, they are available on Gravotion. I hope this lesson helped you with the past simple. Leave me some of your examples in the comments below. I will see you very soon. Bye.