Olly is preparing your space...
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Olly is preparing your space...
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Academic Excellence
The past simple is the most common tense for talking about finished events and actions in the past. You already know the basics from A1 - at A2, we go deeper: spelling rules, tricky irregular verbs, negatives, questions, and when exactly to use this tense. 🎯
For regular verbs, add -ed to the base form. The form is the same for all persons:
| Base form | Past simple | Spelling note |
|---|---|---|
| work | worked | most verbs: add -ed |
| live | lived | verb ends in -e: add -d only |
| try | tried | consonant + y: change y to i, add -ed |
| stop | stopped | consonant-vowel-consonant (1 syllable): double the final consonant |
| visit | visited | 2+ syllables with stress NOT on last syllable: no doubling |
For irregular verbs, the past form must be learned. Some common ones:
| Base | Past | Base | Past |
|---|---|---|---|
| go | went | buy | bought |
| see | saw | think | thought |
| eat | ate | take | took |
| give | gave | speak | spoke |
| come | came | write | wrote |
Use did not (or did not) + base form for negatives, and Did + subject + base form for questions. The main verb goes back to the base form:
Exception: with the verb be, do NOT use did. Use was not / were not and Was / Were:
Common time expressions with the past simple: yesterday, last week/month/year, in 2010, ago, when I was a child.
| ✅ Correct | ❌ Wrong |
|---|---|
| She did not go. | She did not went. |
| Did you see him? | Did you saw him? |
| He was not there. | He did not be there. |
| I stopped the car. | I stoped the car. (double the p) |
Now let's go back in time and practice! 🚀