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Simple Past Tense: Simple Past Tense #1

Dennis Oliver
Simple Past Tense #1

English uses verbs in the simple past tense to refer to actions
situations, or events that are finished and that happened before
now. There are three ways to form simple past tense in English.
These three different ways depend on the verb:

the verb be
(special forms)

regular verbs
(add - d- ed, or change y to i and add - ed)

regular verbs
(special forms)

Today we'll look at the simple past forms of be.


The Simple Past: BE

The verb be uses two forms in the simple past: were and was:

you / we / they were
I / he / she / it was

To make these forms negative, add not after were or was:

you / we / they were not
I / he / she / it was not

The negative forms are often contracted:

were not -----> weren't
was not -----> wasn't


Examples

She was there.
She was not there.
She wasn't there.

They were here yesterday.
They were not here yesterday.
They weren't here yesterday.

I was at home last night.
I was not at home last night.
I
 wasn't at home last night.

You were very kind.
You were not rude.
You weren't rude.

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