Past Simple: Regular and Irregular Verbs
The Past Simple is used for completed actions in the past. It’s one of the most common tenses in English.
1. Regular verbs: base verb + ed
work → worked, play → played, clean → cleaned, talk → talked, call → called.
2. Spelling rules for regular verbs
– Verbs ending in -e: add -d (like → liked, dance → danced).
– Verbs ending in consonant + y: change y to i + ed (study → studied, try → tried).
– Short verbs (CVC): double last consonant (stop → stopped, plan → planned).
3. Irregular verbs (common list)
| Base | Past | Base | Past |
|---|---|---|---|
| go | went | see | saw |
| have | had | eat | ate |
| do | did | drink | drank |
| say | said | write | wrote |
| make | made | read | read |
| get | got | swim | swam |
| take | took | buy | bought |
| come | came | teach | taught |
4. Negative and questions
Negative: Subject + didn’t + base verb: I didn’t go to school yesterday.
Question: Did + subject + base verb: Did you see the film? Did he finish his homework?
5. Exercises
Exercise 1: I _____ (visit) my friend yesterday. She _____ (go) to the cinema last night. They _____ (not/play) tennis on Saturday.
Exercise 2: Write about what you did yesterday (5-6 sentences).
See also: Conditional Sentences.
مدونة التربية و التعليم في الجزائر – دروس، فروض، نتائج امتحانات مدونة التربية والتعليم في الجزائر | تحضير الدروس، فروض واختبارات، نتائج البكالوريا وBEM، مسابقات التوظيف، والتوجيه المدرسي للطلاب وأولياء الأمور.