Practice Past Simple Tense | English Grammar Course

Hi, everyone. I'm Esther.

In this first checkup, we'll take a look at

practice questions using the 'be' verb in the past simple tense.

Remember the 'be' verbs in the past simple tense are ‘was’ or ‘were’.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘He __ at work earlier.’

The subject here is ‘we’. So do we use ‘was’ or ‘were’?

The correct answer is ‘was’. ‘He was at work earlier.’

The next sentence says,

‘We _____ very happy yesterday.’

If the subject is ‘we’, remember the be verb is ‘were’.

‘We were very happy yesterday.’

Next, ‘My parents or they __ worried about me.’

If it's 'they', remember we have to say ‘were’.

‘My parents were worried about me.’

If I want to use the negative, I can also say ‘My parents weren't worried about me.’

And that's possible.

Now I want you to find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘We wasn't good students.’

We wasn't good students.

Can you figure out what's wrong?

The subject here is ‘we’, so we don't say ‘was not’.

We need to say ‘were not’ or the contraction ‘weren't’.

‘We weren't good students,’ is the correct answer.

The next one says, ‘Were she a teacher?’

Now, this is a question so the be verb comes at the beginning.

That's correct, but the subject here is ‘she’.

Therefore, we need to start with ‘was’.

‘Was she a teacher?’

And finally,

‘They wasn't at school.’

The subject is ‘they’, so the answer is

‘They weren't at school.’

You can use the contraction ‘weren't’ or ‘were not’.

Let's move on to the next checkup.

Now, let's practice regular verbs in the past simple tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

‘He ____ at home.’

The verb is ‘study’.

Remember, when changing a regular verb into

the past tense, we add ‘d’ or ‘ed’ to the end of the verb.

However, there's a separate rule for words that end in ‘y’.

Such as, ‘study’.

We drop the ‘y’ and we add ‘ied’.

So the correct answer is,

‘He studied at home.’

The next sentence says, ‘We __ pencils.’

We want to use negative because it says ‘not use’.

Remember for the negative, we always use ‘did not’, no matter what the subject.

You can also use the contraction ‘didn't’.

Now, what do we do to the verb?

We keep it as ‘is’. We do not change it.

‘We didn't’ or ‘We did not’ use pencils.

The next sentence says, ‘His friends or they walk to the gym.’

What's the past tense of ‘walk’?

We simply have to add ‘ed’ because it's a regular verb.

‘His friends walked to the gym.’

Now, find a mistake in the next sentence.

‘She didn't likes math.’

‘didn't’ is correct.

However, remember we keep the verb as ‘is’ in the base form.

So we don't say ‘likes’. We say ‘like’.

‘She didn't like math.’

The next sentence says, ‘Did it rained this morning?’

Now this is a question.

In a question, it’s right to start the sentence with ‘Did’.

‘Did it rained?’

Do you notice the mistake?

Remember, we do not use the past tense form in the question.

We use the base form of the verb.

‘Did it rain this morning?’

And finally, ‘They not play the piano.’

The verb is an action verb.

So we need a ‘did’ in front of ‘not’.

‘They did not play the piano.’

Let's move on to the next checkup.

Now, I'll talk about irregular verbs in the past simple tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

‘He __ to school.’ And the verb is ‘run’.

‘run’ is an irregular verb, so the past tense form is ‘ran’.

‘He ran to school.’

The next sentence says, ‘We __ flowers.’

We want to use the negative because here it says ‘not grow’.

Remember, no matter what the subject in the negative form,

we say ‘did not’

or ‘didn't’.

Then we keep the verb in its base form.

‘We did not grow’ or ‘We didn't grow flowers.’

The next sentence says, ‘Where __ you teach last year?’

This is a question.

Again, all we need to put is ‘did’.

‘Where did you teach last year?’

It doesn't matter what the subject is.

We always go with ‘did’.

Next, try to find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘He didn't sold newspapers.’

Remember, in the negative, ‘didn't’ is correct for whatever subject there is.

However, we need to keep the verb in its base form.

So the correct answer is, ‘He didn't sell newspapers.’

The next sentence says, ‘Did she sing a song?’

You'll notice it's a similar problem here.

‘sang’ is the irregular past tense form of ‘sing’.

But in a question, if it starts with ‘did’,

we use the base form.

‘Did she sing a song?’

And finally, ‘We taked it home.’

Does that sound right?

‘taked’ is not correct.

The past tense of ‘take’ is ‘took’.

‘We took it home.’

Great job, everyone.

Let's move on.

Wow, we learned a lot in this video.

Keep studying and reviewing the past simple tense.

It's an essential tense that will help you talk about the past.

Keep studying English and I'll see you in the next video.

Bye.