Grammar

Past Simple tense with did

1,800 fill-in-the-gap exercises across 4 forms

For actions that finished at a known time in the past. The form is the same for every subject — the difficulty is the verb itself.

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When you need it

The Past Simple is for something that started and ended in the past, usually with the time made clear:

• A finished action. We sold the car in March.
• A sequence of events. She opened the door, looked inside and left.
• A past habit that has stopped. He smoked for twenty years.
• A past state. They lived in Oslo until 2019.

The tense is chosen by the time, not by how long ago it was. I saw him a minute ago is Past Simple because a minute ago is a finished time.

The two kinds of verb

Regular verbs add -ed, with three spelling rules:

• a silent -e at the end: just add -d — move → moved
• consonant plus -y: -y becomes -ied — carry → carried
• one short vowel between two consonants: double the last one — stop → stopped

Irregular verbs change shape and have to be learned. About a hundred are in daily use: go → went, see → saw, take → took, buy → bought, put → put.

Unlike the Present Simple, the subject makes no difference at all. I went, she went, they went.

did does the work in negatives and questions

The auxiliary is did for every subject. And, exactly as with do and does, the auxiliary takes the tense and the main verb gives it up:

She went. → She didn’t go. → Did she go?

Writing didn’t went is the most common mistake in this tense. If you see a past form after did or didn’t, it is wrong.

Past Simple or Present Perfect

Ask whether the sentence names a finished time.

• I lost my keys yesterday. — yesterday is over, so Past Simple.
• I have lost my keys. — no time given, and the keys are still missing.

Words that force the Past Simple: yesterday, last week, in 2019, two days ago, then, when I was a child.

be is the exception

The verb be does not use did at all. It has its own past forms, was and were, and makes negatives and questions by itself: She wasn’t ready. Were they at home?

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Mistakes to avoid