English Grammar The Past Tense with examples

Grammar Level 1- Lesson fourteen

In this grammar lesson, you learn about The Past Tense in English and how to use it in your English conversation and writing. Just follow examples and write them down a few times to learn them very well. After finishing this lesson, you should work on its quiz.

Grammar Recap

In our previous lesson, we covered the Prepositions If you just landed on this page, we suggest that you complete our previous lesson including its quizzes before continuing on this lesson.

Requirement Lessons

There is no required lessons for working and learning this lesson.

The Past Tense

There are two types of past tense verbs:
regular verbs: add “ed” to the simple form
irregular verbs: don’t add “ed”

Regular verbs add ed to make the past tense (work / worked) and irregular verbs change their form entirely (go / went), or they don’t change at all (put / put). The most important verb to learn first in the past tense is “be.”

Be – Past Tense

I was at school yesterday.

We were in Paris last week.

It was sunny this morning.

Only the verb “be” changes its form for the singular or plural. All the other verbs, regular and irregular, use one form in the past tense, which makes the past tense a little easier to use when making statements.

More practice with the important verb Be comes in below lessons:

• English Grammar Be with Examples
• English Grammar Be Negative with examples
• English Grammar Be Questions with examples
• English Grammar Be Past Tense with examples
• Be Past Tense Part 2 – There Was with examples

Regular Verb: Learn

Subject + _____ed

To make the negative, use “did” + “not” (didn’t) + the main verb in the simple form:

irregular Verb: Have

Subject + ________

(irregular verbs take many different forms in the past tense)

Irregular verbs must be memorized because they change their form completely. The list of commonly used irregular verbs are available at the end of this article.

Review:
The Past Tense describes the things you did yesterday, last year, back in February, in 1973, or an hour ago.

Regular verbs, such as learn, take an “ed” ending after the subject.
work—worked, learn—learned, visit—visited

Irregular verbs change their form entirely or not at all.
eat—ate, go—went, be—was/were, hit—hit, cut—cut

The form of the past tense is not dependent on the subject. See the example below:

Regular Verb – work:
I worked yesterday.
Irregular Verb – eat:
I ate breakfast earlier.

Regular Verb – work:
You worked yesterday.
Irregular Verb – eat:
You ate breakfast earlier.

Regular Verb – work:
He worked yesterday.
Irregular Verb – ate:
He ate breakfast earlier.

Regular Verb – work:
She worked yesterday.
Irregular Verb – ate:
She ate lunch an hour ago.

Regular Verb – like:
The dog liked her food.
Irregular Verb – eat:
She ate her food.

Regular Verb – arrive:
We arrived on time.
Irregular Verb – be:
We were on time.

Regular Verb – share:
You shared a milkshake.
Irregular Verb – have:
You had a nice lunch.

Regular Verb – visit:
They visited the beach.
Irregular Verb – go / eat:
They went to the beach and ate ice creams.

Quiz for The Past Tense

Now that you learned your new lesson, it is time to go to the The Past Tense Quiz page and finish your quiz. While working on your quiz, you can always go back to its lesson to refresh your memory.

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Next Grammar Lesson

In our next lesson, we will cover the Information Questions Before moving to the next lesson, we suggest that you complete this lesson including its quizzes.

Related Grammar Lessons

None

Grammar Level 1 Outline

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Practice English Grammar Skills

For a comprehensive practice of English grammar with quizzes, you can visit the Improve English Grammar Skills page to view HiCafe 250 grammar lessons in 7 levels plus prepositions and pronouns.

List of Commonly Used Irregular Verbs

Below table has the essential Irregular Past Tense Verbs that you should memorize and use in your writing and conversation.