Click here to go back to questions

 

Past Simple

Used for events in the past which happened at a definite time.

e.g.  I started work last year.

        They took a test on Wednesday .

        He went to bed at midnight.

Questions are formed with 'did' plus infinitive

e.g.  Did you see the film on T.V. last night?

         Did you find your missing book?

Negative statements use 'didn't' plus infinitive

e.g. We didn't want to do the test on Saturday.

Although the Past Simple is used for definite times in the past, the time is not always there in the sentence, or it may not be very clear.

Past Simple sentence

Reason for Past Simple tense
I learned to swim when I was a child. Speaker knows when that was.
Then we went to London and finally spent the night in Soho. This is the end of a story, the writer mentioned the time at the beginning.
While we were in Paris, we visited several art galleries The writer knows when this was!