A. Conjugation: Simple past
Did you notice the verbs in the article about William Shakespeare on pages 8-9 of English Now No 85? Many 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 verb ends with a ‘y’, change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘ed’.
Examples:
- work → worked
- move → moved
- marry → married
However, some verbs are irregular. One example is the verb ‘to be’, which 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 |
| die | died |
| be | was/were |
| know | knew |
| imagine | imagined |
| work | worked |
| take (part) | took (part) |
| marry | married |
| get | got |
| live | lived |
| think | thought |
| believe | believed |
| spend | spent |
| include | included |
| use | used |
| say | said |
| have | had |
| begin | began |
| write | wrote |
| move | moved |
| call | called |
| make | made |
| perform | performed |
| include | included |
| continue | continued |
| open | opened |
| help | helped |
| catch | caught |
| rebuild | rebuilt |
| initiate | initiated |
| build | built |
| ask | asked |
| return | returned |
| buy | bought |
| become | became |
| come | came |
| demolish | demolished |
| excavate | excavated |
| belong | belonged |
| look (like) | looked (like) |
Now try the exercise in Part B to check your comprehension of the simple past tense.
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