Beispiele und Erklärungen für das Past Simple: Bildung mit regelmäßigen und unregelmäßigen Verben, Verwendung im Alltag, Signalwörter, Übungsansätze und typische Fehlerquellen. Mit klaren Regeln und praktischen Übungen.
Examples and explanations for the Simple Past: formation with regulars and irregular verbs, common uses in everyday speaking and writing, signal words, practice tips, and typical mistake areas. Clear rules and practical exercises.
The Past Simple tense describes actions that finished in the past and is used for narrating events, habits, and timelines. This guide covers regular and common irregular forms plus useful time expressions.
Usage
Use the Past Simple for completed actions at a specific time, sequences of past events, and past habits that are no longer true. It sets the scene when telling stories or reporting.
Formation
Regular verbs form the Past Simple by adding -ed to the base form, while irregular verbs follow unique patterns you learn case by case. Negative and question forms use did + base form.
Regular Verbs
Regular verbs consistently add -ed to create the Past Simple, and this rule applies to most common actions.
Irregular Verbs
Irregular verbs change form in various ways, so it's best to learn high-frequency examples through practice and exposure.
Negative and Questions
Negatives and questions in the Past Simple use did + not or did + subject + base verb, which keeps the main verb in its original form for consistency.
Time Expressions
Time expressions like yesterday, last week, ago, and on (date) signal when an action happened and often appear with the Past Simple to anchor events.
Summary
The Past Simple describes finished actions, uses -ed for regular verbs, relies on memorized forms for irregulars, and pairs with time expressions to clarify timing.
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