The Simple Past: Part 1, Forming the Simple Past

Forming the Simple Past, sometimes called the Preterite tense, is really pretty easy at least for regular verbs.
Take the subject, follow it with the verb ending in ed and there you have it. And, to make it easier, the Simple Past form is invariable that means it doesnt change no matter what subject you use. A couple of things to watch out for:
Verbs ending in a consonant + y, like cry and try: drop the y and add ied.
Verbs ending in e like receive only need to have the d added received.
For the irregular verbs in English it is a bit more difficult and you will need to learn most of the most often used ones. There is a full list of irregular verbs with their past form on english4Today.com.

In Part 2 we will look at making the Interrogative and Negative of the Simple Past and then in Part 3 we will look at WHEN we use the Simple Past.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• english
• grammar
• simple
• past
• preterite
• verbs
• tenses
• language

[southofbsas]

do really English speakers notice the difference when pronouncing a regular verb in the past tense? by just adding a small sound like d or t ?