All sections
Foundations
The verb system
Describing and connecting
- 09 Adjectives and adverbs
- 10 Prepositions
- 11 Conjunctions
- 12 Building longer sentences
- 13 Punctuation and capital letters
Words and sounds
Practice and progress
05.05Core
Past Simple
A finished action at a finished time in the past.
The structure
Positive
Subject + V2
Negative
Subject + did not + V1
Question
Did + subject + V1 ?
When you use it
- A single finished action: I passed the test.
- A series of finished actions in order: He woke up, made tea and left.
- A past habit that has stopped: We played cricket every evening.
- A past state: She was very shy as a child.
Words that signal this tense
yesterdaylast nightlast yearin 2019two days agothenwhen I was young
Examples
- I visited my uncle last week.میں پچھلے ہفتے اپنے چچا کے پاس گیا۔
- She wrote a letter to the university.اس نے یونیورسٹی کو ایک خط لکھا۔
- We did not go to school yesterday.ہم کل اسکول نہیں گئے۔
- Did you call the counsellor?کیا تم نے کونسلر کو فون کیا؟
- He was born in Multan.وہ ملتان میں پیدا ہوا تھا۔
The mistake almost everyone makes
Did you went there?
Did you go there?
After did the main verb goes back to V1. The word did already carries the past; the verb must not carry it twice.