How to ask questions in the PAST SIMPLE tense

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid.

If you're a beginner or intermediate level student,

this is a really important lesson for you,

and that's because we're going to focus on the past simple tense,

and specifically on making questions or forming questions in the past simple tense.

Now, why are these two areas specifically a little bit more challenging for students?

For two reasons. First of all, when we're talking about the past tense,

it's a little bit more challenging because we have to deal with regular verbs and irregular verbs,

and when we're talking about questions it's a little bit harder because we have to add some

words when we form a question and we have to change other words. All right?

And all of this we have to do quite a lot when we speak in English,

because most of the time when you speak in English

or when you speak probably in any language,

we tend to talk more about the past than about anything else.

So, certainly, when we speak in English, we use this tense very, very often.

Okay? So, let's have a look at exactly how to make these changes

so that you can ask questions in the past simple tense very easily. Okay.

So, first of all, let's look at the sentence. When we form a sentence using a regular verb

in the past, so what we do is we take the base verb, which in this first case is "work",

and we add "ed" or "d". Okay? If the verb already ends in "e", like "dance",

then we just add a "d"; and if not, we add "ed".

So: "He worked", right? "He worked",

"work" becomes "worked". But what happens when we need to make the question? Two things.

First, you have to add this extra word: "Did".

Without that, your question, I guarantee you, will be wrong.

It might be casual, it might be informal, but it will grammatically be incorrect.

So we need that word "Did" to form the question, and then we have to make another change.

We have to add this: "Did he work?"

So what happened? Here, when we had the sentence, we had to

write "ed", and we said: "He worked." But when we come back to the question,

we are coming back to the base form off the verb,

so we do not say: "Did he worked?"

We just say: "Did he work?" All right?

So try to get the rhythm of that. And I'll try to repeat

it for you, too, which you can then listen to and repeat after me. So, for example:

"He worked.", "Did he work?",

"She played.", "Did she play?",

"They visited.", "Did they visit?"

All right? You see? In each case, we have come back to the base form of the verb. So,

do not say: "Did he worked?" Don't say: "He worked?" Try to use the entire expression:

"Did he work?", "Did she play?", "Did they visit?" Okay?

That's with regular verbs.

Now, what happens when we have irregular verbs? Well, you have to learn a little bit more.

First, you have to learn: What is the past tense form to use with those irregular verbs?

So, for example, in this one, the verb itself is the verb "go".

"I go." Or let's say: "He goes."

But in the past, you have to know that the past tense form of "go" is "went".

All right? How do you know that? Well, you just have to learn it. Okay? There's no other way.

There's a list of irregular verbs, and then you have to learn them by heart, you probably

know many of them because you hear them a lot, but otherwise, you have to learn them.

There's not much choice, there. Okay?

So in the past: "He went." How do we make that into a question, and what happens?

The same thing that happened up here with the regular verbs. So: "He went." becomes:

"Did he go?" All right? So let's see. "He went to the store."

When we ask the question, we say:

"Did he go to the store?" All right?

So, again, we had to add the word "did", and

we have to come back to the base form of the verb, which in this case was "go". All right?

Next one: "She saw him." for example.

Question: "Did she see him?"

We add "did" and we come back to the base form of the verb: "see".

"We broke the bottle."

Question: "Did we break the bottle?"

We added "did" and we came back to the base form of the verb.

I know you're going to get really tired of hearing me say that, but I'm saying that many times so that will

help you to remember that we do come back to that in all cases;

with regular verbs or

irregular verbs. Okay? There is a pattern to it.

"Did he go?",

"Did she see?",

"Did we break?" Okay? Like that.

Try to hear it, try to say it aloud as much as you can as well.

Now, there is another little challenge, because sometimes we're also using question words. Right?

So, for example... First of all, what are the question words?

"Who", "what", "when", "where", "why", "how", "how much", "how many", "how often",

things like that. Okay? These are our question words.

So, how do we integrate or use these words along with our past simple questions?

So let's take the sentence first:

"He bought it." All right? Past tense of "buy" is "bought".

You need to learn that one. Now, if you want to ask the question... Use the question word

"where", so what happens? We keep this part-right?-that we learnt up here: "Did he buy it?"

That stays the same, but we need to add the word, let's say "Where" before it. So, the important thing

to remember is: Even when we use that question word, we still have to use "did".

So we don't say: "Where he buy it?"

Or we do not say: "Where he bought it?"

No. We have to say:

"Where did he buy it?",

"Where did he buy it?" Okay? In regular conversation, that's how it would sound.

"Where did he buy it?"

"She left." All right? Now we want to say: "When?"

So it becomes: "When did she leave?",

"When did she leave?" All right?

So the most important thing is you're keeping this construction

of: "Did she leave?" like we saw up here, but you're just adding the question word

right before it. All right?

Last one: "They returned."

And you want to say: "Why?" You want to ask: Why? So it becomes:

"Why did they return?" Okay?

Again, we have the form: "Did they return?"

and we just added the question word "Why" before it.

In a minute when we come back, you'll have a chance to

practice this a little bit more.

So, we'll look at the sentence, and then you help me to fill in the question. Okay?

Number one: "The client signed."

Now, don't worry that in these examples I've purposely given

you a few extra words. It doesn't matter if I said: "He signed." or "The client signed."

Or if I gave a simple verb like "worked", and this is a new verb, but it doesn't matter.

And even if you don't know the verb and even if you don't know the meaning, it doesn't

matter. You know the principle, and so you can figure it out. Right? That's what I want

you to be able to do. So even if you come across a word that you've never heard before,

you can still apply what you've learned to figure it out. Okay? That's what we're doing now.

So: "The client signed." So, how do we make it into a question?

"Did", right? So I've written that for you already:

"Did the client", what happens here?

This is a regular verb, so we added "ed".

So what happens there? We go back to what?

The base form of the verb.

So: "Did the client sign?"

For example: "Did the client sign the contract?" Okay?

Next: "The President agreed." All right?

This was an example of a verb which already ends

in "e", so we only needed to add the "d"-right?-to turn it into the past tense.

"The President agreed." When we ask the question, it becomes:

"Did the President

agree?" Okay? Very good.

"The university offered."

Now, I didn't have space to write the full sentence. Maybe something

like: "The university offered him a scholarship." Okay? So, we know that the verb is "offer",

then we add an "ed", it became past tense. "The university offered", but when we go back

to the base form of the verb in the question, it becomes:

"Did the university

offer him a scholarship?" Right?

"Did the university offer him a scholarship?"

So in all these cases, we have come back to the

base form of the verb. Okay, good.

Next: "The band performed." Okay?

Again, we see the "ed" here.

"Did the band

perform?"

Okay? Very good. I'm sure you got it right. You've understood this, now.

All right, so those were regular verbs. Now we have a few irregular verbs. All right?

Nothing to worry about. Oh, actually there's some regular and some irregular. Okay?

All right. "It felt good."

Now, "felt"-okay?-is the past tense of which word?

This and this are two verbs that students always get confused. All right?

So, "felt" is the past tense of

"feel", so it becomes:

"Did it feel good?"

All right? Very good. "It felt good.",

"Did it feel good?", "feel", "felt".

Let's jump down here for a second, because I want you to see the contrast. All right?

"She fell yesterday." Okay? She fell down, or something like that.

So: "fell" is the past tense of which word?

It's the past tense of, what is it?

"Fall", very good. So the question becomes:

"How did",

"How did she fall?" All right?

Because when we have the question word, we still need to add "did",

and then we come back to the base form of the verb.

Okay. "How did she fall?" All right? So remember these two. Okay? People... Students

always confuse these two verbs, so make sure you don't do that.

"Fall", "fell", "feel", "felt". All right? Very good.

"The bride arrived." Who's the bride? What does the word "bride" mean? The bride is the

elegant woman who's getting married. Okay? So, a "bride" is the woman who's getting married.

So: "The bride arrived." This happens to be a regular verb. How do we know that? Because

of the ending, here. Again, the word ends in "e": "arrive", we're just adding "d". So,

how do we make it a question? "When",

very good.

"When did she arrive?" Okay?

We've gone back to our base form.

Last one: "I told him." Okay?

"I told him." So "told" is the past

tense of which word? You need to know in order to ask the question:

"What",

"What did you

tell him?" All right?

So you see that especially with the past tense of the irregular verbs, it's really important

for you to know exactly what's the past tense form and... And so on. Because otherwise,

you won't be able to make this transition easily and comfortably, but once you know

them, it will come to you really, really fast. Okay?

So I hope this lesson has helped you

to understand a little bit better how to form questions, especially in the past simple tense.

If you'd like to do some practice, which is always recommended,

please go to our website, www.engvid.com, and there you can do a quiz on this,

as well as watch over 700 other lessons.

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so you can get lots of other useful videos. All right?

All the best with your English. Bye for now.