Simple Past Tense

Simple Past

The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now.  The simple past tense shows that you are talking about something that has already happened. Unlike the past continuous tense, which is used to talk about past events that happened over a period of time, the simple past tense emphasizes that the action is finished. You can also use the simple past to talk about a past state of being, such as the way someone felt about something. This is often expressed with the simple past tense of the verb to be and an adjective, noun, or prepositional phrase.​​​​​​​

Line Past (binary/octet-stream)

Simple Past

Use the simple past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind.

Simple past

Structure (binary/octet-stream)

Caption: : structure

Examples: I lived in Brazil for two years. Shauna studied Japanese for five years. They sat at the beach all day. They did not stay at the party the entire time. He didn't play the piano. Did you play a musical instrument when you were a kid?