Simple Past Tense

The simple past tense is used to talk about a completed action or state that occurred in the past. To form this tense, you simply add ed to the end of the verb, as long as it is a regular verb. For example, the past tense of walk is walked. Be sure you use the simple past whenever you say when something happened in the past, for example, "I talked to her yesterday."

There are many irregular verbs in the simple past tense, however. For example, the past tense of have is had. The past tense of does is did. Be is especially tricky, because we say I/he/she/it was and you/we/they were.

To form the negative or ask a question in the past tense, we use did, as in, "Did you see that film?" or, "I didn't go to the store yesterday."