Simple Past Tense

• The simple past tense is used to describe completed actions that occurred at a specific time in the past.
• It is used for single actions, habits, or states in the past.
• Time indicators such as "yesterday," "last week," "ago," or specific dates are often used with this tense.

Regular Verbs

• Regular verbs form the simple past tense by adding "-ed" to the base form of the verb.
• If the verb ends in "-e", only "-d" is added (e.g., like becomes liked).
• If the verb ends in a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence and the final syllable is stressed, the final consonant is doubled before adding "-ed" (e.g., stop becomes stopped)
• For verbs ending in "-y" preceded by a consonant, the "-y" changes to "-i" before adding "-ed" (e.g., study becomes studied).

Irregular Verbs

• Irregular verbs have unique past tense forms that do not follow the standard "-ed" rule.
• These forms must be memorized.
• Examples of common irregular verbs include: go (went), see (saw), eat (ate), have (had), do (did).
• Some irregular verbs have the same form in the base form and past simple form (e.g., cut, hit, put).

Past Simple vs Past Continuous

• Simple past tense describes completed actions.
• Past continuous tense describes actions in progress at a specific time in the past.
• The past continuous is formed using "was/were" + the present participle (verb + "-ing").
• The past continuous is often used to set the scene or background in a story, while the simple past describes the main events.
• We often use the past continuous and past simple together to say that something happened in the middle of something else.
• In such cases, the past continuous describes the ongoing action and the simple past describes the interrupting action.

Uses of Simple Past

• To describe completed actions or events in the past: "I visited Paris last summer."
• To describe a series of completed actions in the past: "I woke up, brushed my teeth, and had breakfast."
• To describe past habits or routines. These are often used with adverbs of frequency: "When I was a child, I always walked to school."
• To describe past facts or generalizations: "Shakespeare wrote many famous plays."
• In conditional sentences (Type II) to talk about hypothetical or unreal situations in the present or future: "If I had more time, I would learn to play the guitar."
• Note that stative verbs describe states rather than actions. While these are not used in continuous tenses, they can be used in simple past.
• Examples of state verbs are: believe, know, seem, understand.