Telling about past

Telling about past

Study the explanation below.

The past tense shows the past events and past activities.

The affirmative form of simple past tense uses the verb II form.

In the simple past tense, regular verbs end in -ed.

e.g. monitor – monitored travel – travelled

supply – supplied include – included

If a verb ends with a /d/ or /t/ sound, the past form is pronounced with a long (- id)

ending.

e.g. included

completed

A lot of common English verbs, and some modal verbs, have irregular past tense

forms. Unlike regular verbs, irregular verbs do not have past forms which can be

predicted.

e.g. have – had take – took send – sent

can – could must – had to

We use did to make past tense questions and negatives.

e.g. How many countries did Nick visit?

Nick didn’t look tired.

The past continuous tense describes a past action at some point between its beginning

and its end.

In the past continuous tense, the subject is followed by the auxiliary was/were and the

verb is added with the –ing form.