The tenses of the past "simple- continuous- perfect.."are so often confused, that it's a good idea to revise the simple past tense first, then in the next lessons I will connect the simple past with the other tenses but remember: if the past activity closely connected to the present ,we use the Present Perfect tense "as in the previous lesson".

                       The simple Past Tense:

    Usage :

 We use the simple past tense to talk about finished actions in the past (they can be short or long actions) ,past habits,repeated activities in the past..:

  - Shakespeare wrote many important plays.

 - He spent his holiday in the mountain.

 -The new company interviewed new employees last Monday.

       Form:

1- We add -ed or -ied( for some verbs ending -y) to the infinitive of regular verbs :

       - It rained hard last winter.

       -He tried his best to pass the exam.

2- We use the past form of irregular verbs:

   - I wrote a long blog last night .

   - He bought a new black car two weeks ago.

    Time Adverbials :

 We can use the following time adverbials with the simple past tense:

Yesterday ,  ago  , last " month /week/ Friday ../winter ..." ......etc.

   - I finally passed my driving test last week.

   - Two days ago, I visited the National Museum in my city .

  Common mistakes

 Throughout my teaching period I  found that most students made mistakes in writing the simple past tense in questions and answers and in negative sentences too ,so I will focus on these mistakes by examples :

 In questions : We use did and the infinitive form of the main verb,but when we want to answer no need to put did too ,for example:

   - When did they arrive ( arrived)   ? -They arrived three hours ago.

    - How long did he work (  worked ) there? - He worked there for almost five years .

    - Did you watch  ( watched)   the match last night? -Yes ,I did "Yes, I watched it"

 In negatives : we use did not ( didn't) and the infinitive form of the main verb:

     - We didn't see ( saw ) the begining of the film because we were late .

      - She didn't do ( did ) her homework yesterday.

   Important note :

 When we have in the sentence an auxiliary verb like ( was -were - had - could - .......) so ,we can make questions and negatives from these verbs and no need to add did . For examples:

    -I couldn't attend the party last night ,I was busy.

   - The students weren't satisfied by their results.

   - Was She online yesterday?

    Exercise- A-

 Change the infinitives in brackets to the simple past tense:

 1- the players ( be ) tired after the match.

 2-the meeting ( last ) for two hours.

  3-I ( study ) French for three years.

  4- The policemen ( catch) the thief last night.

     Exercise -B-

   1-Give two sentences using the simple past tense in negatives

   2- Give two sentences using the simple past tense in questions.

  Thank you for reading .

  - Hala -