Past Tense — Past Events

The past tense expresses “an event or state that occurred at a certain time in the past.” It is often used with words and phrases that indicate the past, such as “yesterday,” “last week,” and “in 2020.”

Basic Rules

The past forms of the verb be are was / were (I/he/she/it → was, you/we/they → were). The past forms of ordinary verbs are divided into two types: regular changes (adding -ed) and irregular changes. Negative sentences use did not (didn't) + the base form of the verb, and questions use Did + subject + base form of the verb? As with the present tense, did is used instead of do/does. When did is used in a past-tense sentence, the verb must always be in its base form (× Did he went ~? → ○ Did he go ~?).

Points to Note

① Spelling of regular changes: usually +ed (played), a final e takes +d (liked), a consonant+y changes y→i +ed (study → studied), and a short vowel followed by a consonant doubles the consonant (stop → stopped).
② Common irregular verbs: go → went, come → came, see → saw, eat → ate, take → took, get → got, have → had, make → made, do → did, say → said, give → gave, find → found, buy → bought. These must be memorized.
③ Use the past tense with expressions indicating the past: yesterday, last week / month / year, two days ago, in 2020, this morning, etc. To distinguish it from the present perfect, the past tense often clearly indicates a specific past time.

Practice

1. Write “We played tennis yesterday” in English.
2. Write “He did not eat breakfast” in English.
3. Write “Did you go to Kyoto? — Yes, I did” in English.