SIMPLE PAST Carol Tips

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Hello everyone! This is Teacher Carol Pinho and this is our new episode of Carol Tips!

Today, we will talk about Simple Past 

So, let’s get down to business!



Simple Past is used to talk about things that happened in the past, but the period must be SPECIFIC, that is, we have to know when the action occurred, like in:

I visited my family in 2019.

or

I went to London in 2017.



The period must be SPECIFIC and FINISHED, meaning that, the “time” of the sentence must be OVER

For example:

The sentence: “My daughter was born in 2000” is correct, because the year 2000 is over now.

ok teacher…. and if I want to say “I drank coffee today”, is it correct? No! It is not! Today is not over. My coffee is over, but the period we are using isn’t finished. In this case, we will use PRESENT PERFECT. We will talk about this verbal tense on our next episode.



Now, talking about structure. When we use Simple Past, we use the 2nd column of the verbs in the affirmative sentences, like:

go - went

see - saw

make - made

dance - danced



For example:

My husband cooked pasta last Sunday.

or 

She watched an amazing movie yesterday.

In the negative, we use the auxiliary verb DIDN’T  and the principal verb in the infinitive form, which is the base form or the 1st column of verbs.



For example:

I didn’t go to the movies last weekend.

or 

My parents didn’t visit me last year.

(Do you see? In the negative, the verb is not in the PAST FORM)



When we talk about INTERROGATIVE sentences, we use DID as the auxiliary verb, followed by the subject and the infinitive of the verb too, equal in the negative form.

For instance:

Did you read the news yesterday?

or 

Did you see John at school last week?



When we use WH words in the questions, like WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY or HOW, we place them before the subject. The structure will be:

WH WORD + DID + SUBJECT + VERB IN INFINITIVE

For example:

When did you move to Bahia?

How did you go to work yesterday?

Why did you decide to stop university last year?

When we make sentences with VERB TO BE in the PAST, it is all different, right?

In affirmative sentences, we use WAS or WERE



Note that we use WAS for I, HE, SHE and IT 

and WERE for YOU, WE and THEY



Like in:

I was born in 1982

She was at home last night

They were boring when they were kids



For the NEGATIVE form, we do not use the AUXILIARY VERB DIDN’T. VERB TO BE goes to negative form alone, 

was not (or) WASN’T

She wasn’t my friend 10 years ago

I wasn’t well last night

were not (or) WEREN’T



They weren’t together in the party on Saturday

You weren’t happy at the club yesterday



In the INTERROGATIVE, we move the verb to be before the subject, such as:



Was he at school yesterday?

Were you happy when you lived in London?



We can also place the WH WORDS before verb to be in the questions. For example:

Where were you last night?

Why was the refrigerator door opened?



That’s it! Hope you liked it. Remember to follow us on Instagram. Search for @carolpinhoefl. We are also on Youtube. See you on our next Carol Tips!