English Language Arts

Simple Past

Concept sheet | English Language Arts

Grade

1-4

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Simple Past Uses
Regular Verbs
Irregular Verbs
Simple Past Forms Reminder
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Simple Past: Uses
Regular Verbs
Irregular Verbs
Simple Past Forms Reminder

Simple Past Uses

Rules

The simple past is used for any action or event that is completely finished and happened in the past:

Single completed action
Past repeated actions or habits
Past sequence of actions happening one after the other (in a sequence)

Examples

Single completed action

A person is happy after buying new skates.

He bought new skates in 1998.

Past repeated actions or habits

A person used to skate on an outside rink in 1998.

He skated every Friday in 1998.

Past actions happening one after the other (in a sequence)

A person arrived home, sat down on a couch and turned on the TV to watch Hockey Night in Canada last night.

Last night, he arrived home, sat down on a couch and turned on the TV to watch Hockey Tonight.

Tips

One more use for the simple past

In a complex sentence, you can use the simple past when:

one action interrupts another action that was in progress

A person was taking a shower when the phone rang.

The telephone rang when he was taking a shower yesterday.

Simple Past Keywords

These keywords indicate the past:

A word	A combination of words
A word	ago:	before:	last:
yesterday	days ago months ago years ago	the day before the month before the year before	last week last month last year

Regular Verbs

A regular verb is a verb that follows a typical pattern.

All regular verbs in the simple past end in -ed.

Regular verb simple past endings
Most verbs	+ed	want → wanted talk → talked
Verbs ending in -e	+d	love → loved dance → danced
Verbs ending in consonant -y	change -y to -ied	study → studied fry → fried
Verbs ending in vowel -y	+ed	play → played enjoy → enjoyed
Verbs ending in consonant—vowel—consonant (CVC)*	double last consonant +ed	plan → planned stop → stopped

*For more on doubling consonants, see Double Consonants—Spelling Rules.

Irregular Verbs

The verbs are called irregular because:

Their base form may change when used in the past.
They do not end in -ed.

There are more than 150 frequently used ones and even more that are used rarely.

Click here fo a list of common irregular verbs.

Simple Past Forms Reminder

Affirmative Forms

to be

regular verbs

irregular verbs

I
he/she/it

was

talked
to talk

visited
to visit

played
to play

listened
to listen

walked
to walk

watched
to watch

went
to go

ran
to run

paid
to pay

swam
to swim

left
to leave

flew
to fly

we
you
they

were

Negative Forms

to be

other verbs

I
he/she/it

was not

wasn't

did not

didn't

verb base form