Le temps passé simple

Simple Past Tense

• The simple past tense describes actions that happened and finished at a specific time in the past.
• It's used to talk about completed actions, habits in the past, and past states of being.
• Formation: Regular verbs form the past tense by adding "-ed" to the base form (e.g., walk – walked). Irregular verbs have unique past tense forms (e.g., go – went).
• Examples:
  • I walked to school yesterday.
  • She ate dinner at 7 pm.
  • They played tennis last weekend.
• Common irregular verbs: be, have, do, say, see, take, go, make, know, think, run, come, bring, write, feel

Past Tense with "be"

• The past tense form of the verb "to be" is used to express the state of being in the past.
• Formation: The past tense forms are:
  • was (for singular subjects)
  • were (for plural subjects)
• Examples:
  • She was happy yesterday.
  • They were at the park.
  • It was cold last night.

Distinguishing Between Simple Past and Past "to be"

• The biggest difference lies in the action vs. state of being. The simple past describes an action, while the past "to be" describes a state of being.
• Look for the specific action taken.
• If there's a specific action, the simple past is most likely needed. If there's a description of a state of being (e.g., mood, emotion, location), the past "to be" is preferred.

Quiz Preparation

• Practice identifying:
  • Identify the appropriate verb tense (simple past or past "to be") in various sentence contexts.
• Practice forming the past tense:
  • Construct sentences using both regular and irregular verbs in the simple past tense.
  • Form the past tense correctly using the verb "to be."
• Understand the differences in usage
  • Understand how to correctly use each tense to accurately describe past actions and states of being.
• Common Errors:
  • Incorrect use of regular and irregular verbs in the simple past.
  • Mixing up the "was / were" forms of the past "to be."