Past tense

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The past tense is used for describing things that have already happened.

Words in English have several tenses, including many common past tenses. The two which are used the most are the Simple Past Tense and the Perfect Tense

The simple past tense is used when telling a story. Different verbs change in different ways to make the past tense. The most common way is by ending with ed:

• "John kills Harry" becomes "John killed Harry."

• "They walk to work" becomes "They walked to work."

Many other verbs are irregular, this means that there is no pattern and no easy way to know how the verb changes. Some of the most common irregular verbs are:

• "I am happy now" becomes "I was happy yesterday."

• "We are eating in a restaurant tonight" becomes "We were eating in a restaurant yesterday."

• "My son does the washing up" becomes "My son did the washing up when I was out."

• "I have some money to give you" becomes "I had some money but I gave it away."

One very irregular verb is "to read", which is the same when written down in the past tense, but pronounced differently:

• "I read a book every day" becomes "I read the newspaper at breakfast."

In the present tense, "read" is pronounced (said) like the word "reed" or "seed", but in the past tense it is pronounced the same as "red".

The perfect tense is used a lot when people talk. It is used a lot when talking about something that changes what is happening now.

In the perfect tense, the verb "to have" is used and the verb changes again, very often the verb will change the same way as it did in the past perfect tense. Some verbs change the same way in the simple past tense and the past perfect tense. This includes all verbs that use the ed ending:

• "John walked the dog" becomes "John has walked the dog."

• "Bob brought me flowers" becomes "Bob has brought me flowers."

"I sorted it out" becomes "I have sorted it out."

Lots of irregular verbs do not do this though. For example:

• "I ate' three pies for lunch" becomes "I have eaten too much."

• "I was ill this morning" becomes "I have been ill all week."

• "We went to London yesterday" becomes "We have been to London before."