Definition of the simple past tense
The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterit, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.
Examples
John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
My father died last year.
He lived in Fiji in 1976.
We crossed the Channel yesterday.
You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions
frequency: often, sometimes, always
- I sometimes walked home at lunchtime.
- I often brought my lunch to school.
- We saw a good film last week.
- Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
- She finished her work at seven o'clock
- I went to the theater last night
an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago
- People lived in caves a long time ago.
- She played the piano when she was a child.
Download Simple Past Tense exercises HERE in PDF format:
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