Definition of the simple past tense The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now . The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important. Examples John Cabot sailed to America in 1498. My father died last year. He lived in Fiji in 1976. We crossed the Channel yesterday. You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions frequency : often, sometimes, always I sometimes walked home at lunchtime. I often brought my lunch to school. a definite point in time : last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago We saw a good film last week . Yesterday , I arrived in Geneva. She fin...
The Simple Present Tense To express habits, general truths, repeated actions or unchanging situations, emotions, and wishes: Examples For habits He drinks tea at breakfast. She only eats fish. They watch television regularly. For repeated actions or events We catch the bus every morning. It rains every afternoon in the hot season. They drive to Monaco every summer. In the third person singular the verb always ends in -s : he want s , she need s , he give s , she think s. Negative and question forms use DOES (= the third person of the auxiliary 'DO') + the infinitive of the verb. He want s ice cream. Does he want strawberry? He does not want vanilla. Verbs ending in -y : the third person changes the -y to -ies : fly --> fl ies , cry --> cr ies Exception : if there is a vowel before the - y : play --> play s , pray --> pray s Add -es to verbs ending in: -ss, -x, -sh, -ch : he pass es, she catch...