Past simple tense- English tenses

                                                                                                         
Read this paragraph:                                                     អានជាភាសាខ្មែរ!

 Mr. Sa em is a teacher of English at Pa av High School. He started teaching it as a teacher with higher education in 2011 after he graduated from National Institute of Education. He did well in his academic record, but I did not . I thought highly of him because of that.

    @ The underlined sentences are called the past simple.

J  We form the past simple like this:

Positive:          Subject + past tense (V₂)+ ...

Example:

Subject	V2
I/you/we/they/he/she/it/Dave	slept	well last night.
	walked	home yesterday

            Negative:        Subject + did+ NOT+ base verb+ ...

Subject		base verb
I/you/we/they/he/she/it/John and Sue	did not (didn’t)	sleep	well last night
		walk	home yesterday

            Question:        Did +subject + base verb +...?

Did	Subject	base verb
Did	I/you/we/they/he/she/it/	sleep	well last night?
		walk	home yesterday?

        Short answer:

Question	short answer (+)	short answer(-)
Did you study?	Yes, I did	No, I didn't
Did she study?	Yes, she did	No, she didn’t

,

IMPORTANT:

   @ We use the auxiliary verb “did” with all subjects.
 

    @ A past tense is divided into two types- regular and irregular verbs.

·         Regular verbs end in – ed

Ex: talked, visited , missed, predicted...

·         Irregular verbs change their forms unexpectedly.

J  Ed-spelling of past simple

    @ Note : These rules apply only for regular verbs

1.      Normally we just add –ed to the base verb to make a past tense.

base verb	base verb +ed= past tense
walk	walked
visit	visited
need	needed
want	wanted

2.      Just add –d if the verb ends in –e.

base verb	base verb +d= past tense
use	used
like	liked
increase	increased
create	created

3.      Double the last consonant if the verb is one-syllable and ends in one vowel (a e i o u)+ one consonant.

              Ex:  plan         planned

                     stop         stopped

                     rub           rubbed

4.      We don’t double the last consonant if the consonant is “x, y, or w”. We just add –ed to the verb.

Ex:  play         played

       fix            fixed

      show         showed

5.      We sometimes double the last consonant of the two-syllable verbs if the stress falls on the second syllable.

    Ex:  infer            inferred

           prefer          preferred

           submit         submitted

           admit           admitted

6.      If the verb ending in one consonant+  y, we change the –y  to –ied.

Ex:  cry              cried              (‘r’ is a consonant)

       deny            denied

       try               tried

      

7.      But if the verb ending in one vowel+ y, we DON’T change the – y to  –ied . We just add –ed.

                  

          Ex:    enjoy               enjoyed           (‘o’ is a vowel)

                  employ             employed

                   play                 played

J Pronunciation of verb +ed

There are three kinds of sounds of ‘verb + ed’.

1.      /id/​ ​​ for the verbs that end in the letter –t  and  –d.

 Ex: ​​​​​visit              visited    

​     demand          demanded    

2.      /t/​​​​​   ​ for the verbs that end in the letter –p ,-f , -k , -s , -ch , -sh , -x.

Ex: stopped  

      fixed

      liked

      passed

      watched

      washed

     

3.      /d/    for all other verbs with a different ending letter beside the point above, we pronounce /d/.

Ex: allowed    

      stirred

Time expressions commonly used in the past simple tense.

As the name of the tense suggests, time expressions which are used in this tense show a finished time.

    @ -ago

     

·           a minute ago

·           a/one hour ago

·           two days ago

·           ...............

·           long time ago

        @  last-

·         last Monday

·         last week

·         last month

·         last season

·         last year

·         ..............

               @  Yesterday-

·         yesterday

·         yesterday morning

·         yesterday afternoon

·         yesterday evening

               @  The day before yesterday

               @  finished dates

·         in February

·         in 2009

·         in the 13^th  century

·         on 1^st  January,2000

               @  finished events

·         when I was a child

·         during Pol Pot regime

·         at the beginning of the year

Use:           

          The past simple tense is used:

1.  to talk about an action that is finished at a specific time in the past.

Ex:

·           I met my girlfriend when I was at university.

·           During Pol Pot regime, many people died of hunger.

·           John started teaching English in 2000.

2. to express an action that took place for a period of time in the past.

·           Sue trained for a year before she took the test.

·           They lived here for several months  ( now they don’t live here)

3.  to tell about a series of past actions that follow one another in a story.

·           Mr. Sithol studied at Human Resources University in 2007. After hegraduated, he got a job at a company selling car facilities...

4.  with adverbs of frequency to tell about our habits or repeated actions in the past.

·           When I was a child, my mom often beat me.

·           Dara usually met his friends at the weekend.

អានជាភាសាខ្មែរ!

          Thanks for reading!