Simple Past Negative (English Tenses for Beginners)

Wow. Hey. Wow. Wh-...? Wh-...? What happened here? Looks like they had a

party. Yeah, look at this: Balloons, and some streamers; some chips — delicious

—some... some drinks on the table, here. You know what? It looks like someone had

a party. Was it you? Did you do this? Oh, you didn't, did you? So, when we

talk about the negative in the past, it's... it's very confusing for people,

and it's not your fault; it's because English is a little crazy. If we take

the sentence... the second sentence on the board: "They had a party" — if you

wanted to use this in the negative, they would have to say... no, no, no... "They

And there's only one good thing about this. The good thing is: It doesn't

matter if the subject is: "I", "you", "we", "they", "he", "she", or "it" —

it's always going to stay the same — we're always going to use: "didn't". But

we have to change it back to the base verb, and that's the most difficult

thing to remember because you're gonna want to say: "No, they didn't had a

party, Ronnie. They didn't. No, they didn't had it." Yeah, we have to say:

"They didn't have the party." Let's look at the next example: "I went home." Now,

didn't have a party." So, this is the very confusing thing in English: When we

these are irregular verbs in English, so we have to say: "I didn't go home"

talk about the simple past negative — you have to know how to conjugate your

because the present tense of "went" is "go", so you say: "Do you know what? No,

no, no, no, no. I didn't go home." Let's see if you can do this one. In the

sentence, in the positive, should we say: "She wanted a bull"? Then... okay,

a "bull" is a male cow, because every girl wants a bull; a male cow. "No, they

verb. So, in the past tense, we have the verb "had": "They had a party." But if

don't, Ronnie. No, no." Do you know what? "She didn't"... Now, what is the

present tense of "want"? It is definitely "wanted". Good answer. "But

no. But Ronnie, we already said that she didn't want a bull." Oh, I'm sorry. So,

we say: "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She wanted a bull." And you say: "No. No,

Ronnie. She didn't want a bull." So, if it is a regular "ed" verb, that's easier

because we just take off the "ed", and we just have to say: "She didn't want a

we want to make it negative in the past tense, we have to use the present tense,

bull." This is... this is a bull. Ma-ha. No, bulls don't say that; bulls don't

talk. No. So, "She didn't want". Here's another irregular verb — if I say: "He

drove a loud car"... "loud" means it makes a lot of noise. Ra, ra! Loud.

Vroom, vroom. "He drove a loud car." If you wanted to use the negative, we're

going to use "didn't", but we have to put the verb "drove" back into the base

form, and we have to say... Do you know the answer? "He didn't drive" — good —

and we have to say: "They didn't have a party."

"a loud car". I wrote "dive". He certainly didn't dive either. "Drive —

d-r-i-v-e". Oh, do you know what? "He didn't dive" or "He didn't drive a loud car."

"You ate a pie." No, no, you didn't. You didn't. Oh, okay. Sorry. You have to

say: "Ronnie, I didn't" or "You didn't eat a pie", because, again, the present

tense of "eat"... sorry. The present tense of "ate" — oh, I gave you the

answer — is "eat". So, instead of saying: "You didn't ate a pie", we say:

"You didn't eat a pie." Let's see if you can do the last one. "We sang." Good. Do

you know the present tense of the verb "sing" in the negative? Good. "We didn't

sing." So, we say: "sing; sang". So, in the present tense: "We"... sorry. In the

simple past: "We sang"; but in the negative, we have to say: "Uh-uh. No,

no. We didn't sing." And if I'm having a party, like a birthday party — I really,

really hate when people sing "Happy Birthday" to me. It really, really

annoys me; it makes me angry. Err. Rawr. So, the next party you're at — remember

your wonderful, simple past in the negative. Till then, I'm going to have

some more brewskis. See you later.