Simple Past is the dominant past tense. It is used to talk about:
actions that happened at a finished time in the past with a clear duration and clear start and end time.
It is structured as follows:
Subject + Verb in the second form (+object)
The second form of the verb is the infinitive + “ed”. E.g. I walked to work / I asked a question.
However there are a lot of irregular verbs:
E.g. I ate lunch / I sent the mail / I drank a cup of coffee / I took a break / I spoke to a colleague.
One irregular verb has two past forms:
was/were
The key rule is that Simple Past has to be used if a finished time is mentioned.
I went to the office last Friday / I was in my home office last Thursday. / I drove to Paris on my last holiday.
While there are a lot of irregular verbs, the following are used most frequently. If you can memorise these ones, it will cover you for most conversations while you are learning the others. The best way to learn the others is by listening practice.
Talk about last weekend using each of these verbs at least once.
was/were / went / came / left / did / made / had / got / sent / said / saw / put /met / let / read / ate / drank / took / gave / began / knew / thought / bought / caught / heard / held / drove / built / chose /felt
Note:
When asking questions and saying something negative in the Simple Past, you need D-words; “did / didn’t”
All D-words work with the first form of the main verb
Asking Questions:
E.g. Did you have a nice weekend? / Did you come to work by car this morning? / Did you meet anyone last weekend?
Using the same list of verbs above. Ask your trainer some questions about last weekend?
Negation:
I didn’t meet anyone last weekend. / I didn’t go abroad on my last holiday. / Liverpool didn’t win the last FA Cup.
Note: There is one exception!
The verb “BE” can’t be used with D-words (did & didn’t)
Instead you invert subject and verb as follows to form a question:
Were you in the office yesterday?
Was your colleague John at the meeting?
And you add not (or n’t) to make a sentence negative:
I wasn’t in the office yesterday.
My colleague John wasn’t at the meeting.