A. Conjugation: Simple past (regular and irregular verbs)
Have you noticed the verbs in the article about Alan Turing on pages 8-9 of English Now No 81? Most of these verbs are written in the simple past tense. Try to locate them.
In English, the simple past tense is used to express an action that started and ended at one specific time in the past.
To form the simple past tense, the suffix ‘-ed’ is added to the end of most verbs. If the verb ends with an ‘e’, just
add the letter ‘d’. If the verbs ends in consonant + vowel + consonant, double the last consonant.
Examples: work → worked, decide → decided, stop → stopped
However, some verbs are irregular. One example is the verb ‘to be’ that has two forms in the simple past tense: ‘was’
(I was, He/She/It was) and ‘were’ (You were, We were, They were).
Here is a list of all the verbs used in the article. Irregular verbs are in
bold.
| VERBAL BASE | SIMPLE PAST |
| start | started |
| be born | was born |
| grow up | grew up |
| be | was/were |
| like | liked |
| have | had |
| work | worked |
| die | died |
| make | made |
| lead | led |
| go | went |
| connect | connected |
| find | found |
| share | shared |
| enjoy | enjoyed |
| prove | proved |
| gain | gained |
| win | won |
| can | could |
| want | wanted |
| VERBAL BASE | SIMPLE PAST |
| think | thought |
| mean | meant |
| develop | developed |
| return | returned |
| begin | began |
| become | became |
| move | moved |
| use | used |
| communicate | communicated |
| decide | decided |
| know | knew |
| break | broke |
| award | awarded |
| stay | stayed |
| continue | continued |
| explore | explored |
| believe | believed |
| represent | represented |
| stop | stopped |
| run | ran |
Now try the exercise in Part B to check your comprehension of the simple past tense.
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