Grammar ( simple past, past continuous, past perfect)

Simple past

Use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past.

Regular verbs in simple past you have to add –ed or –ied:

play-Played

study-Studied

talk-talked

Also we have irregular verbs, in that change all the spelling:

get-got

write-wrote

read-read (in this cases, just change the pronuncation)

Example:

• I saw a movie yesterday.
• I see a play yesterday.

 1. Something that happened once in the past:

• I met my wife in 1983.

 2. Something that happened again and again in the past:

• When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day.
• We swam a lot while we were on holiday.

Questions and negatives

When the sentences are in negative form or are questions, the auxiliary  is “did”

We use did to make questions with the past tense:

• When did you meet your wife?
• Where did you go for your holidays?
• Did she play tennis when she was younger?
• Did you live abroad? 

We use didn’t (did not) to make negatives with the past tense:

• They didn’t go to Spain this year.
• We didn’t get home until very late last night.
• I didn’t see you yesterday.

Past continuous

We often use the past continuous and the past simple tense together. When this happens, the past continuousdescribes a longer, ‘background’ action or situation and the past simple describes the action or events.

1.To difference at simple past in this case we have to say the period of time when the action happen, for example:

• Simple past. I did my homework yesterday.
• Past continuous. I was doing my homework at 8:00 p.m.

It is used for continuous actions in the past.

Subject     +      Was/Were      +      gerund 

Examples:

• I was sleeping.
• They were dancing.

We use the past continuous to say that something happened in the middle of something else:

• I was making a cake when my mom came.

Subject + wasn’t/weren’t +gerund

• John wasn’t eating because he was feeling sick.
• Jeff wasn’t watching TV.
• My parents weren’t having a good time because it was very cold in Canada.

Wh question + was/were + gerund

• What were you doing last night at around 8:00pm?
• Was Jim doing his homework
• Were they sleeping all morning?

Past perfect.

The Past Perfect tense in English is composed of two parts: the past tense of the verb to have (had) + the past participle of the main verb.

The past perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to make it clear that one event happened before another in the past. It does not matter which event is mentioned first - the tense makes it clear which one happened first.

A completed action before something else in the past.

When we arrived, the film had started. (= first the film started, then later we arrived)

To explain or give a reason for something in the past.

• I'd eaten dinner so I wasn't hungry.
• It had snowed in the night, so the bus didn't arrive.

 Stative verbs only: something that started in the past and continued up to another action in the past.

• When he graduated, he had been in London for six years. 
• When the sentence is negative we use had not/ hadn’t.
• He hadn’t been in his house the whole day.
• When the sentence is a question we use this structure:
• Had + you (person) + participle verb + complement
• Had she read a book before?