Definition Simple Past

The Simple Past Tense is a verb tense used to describe actions or events that started and finished in the past.
It often uses the past form of verbs (e.g., played, went, studied) or irregular verbs (e.g., eat → ate, go → went).

Purpose (Tujuan)

We use the simple past tense to:

1. Talk about completed actions in the past.

   • Example: She visited her grandmother yesterday.

2. Tell stories or describe past events.

   • Example: They watched a movie last weekend.

3. Ask and answer questions about past experiences.

   • Example: Did you study English last night?

4. Give clear information about what happened before now.

   • Example: I didn’t go to school last Monday.

1. Positive Form

To make a positive sentence in the simple past tense, use the subject + past verb + object.
Most verbs add -ed for the past form (regular verbs). Some verbs are irregular and change completely (e.g., go → went, eat → ate).

✅ Examples:

• She went to school yesterday.

• They played football last weekend.

• I ate breakfast this morning.

📌 Note: Learn the list of irregular verbs because they don’t follow the regular “-ed” rule.

2. Negative Form

To make a sentence negative in the simple past tense, use did not (didn’t) + base verb + object.
Remember: after did not, the verb goes back to its base form, not the past form.

✅ Examples:

• She did not go to school.

• They didn’t play football yesterday.

• I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.

❌ Wrong: She didn’t went to school.
✅ Correct: She didn’t go to school.

3. Interrogative Form

To ask a question in the past tense, use Did + subject + base verb.
The verb stays in the base form, just like in the negative form.

✅ Examples:

• Did she go to school?

• Did they play football yesterday?

• Did you study English last night?
  
  

📌 Note: The main verb never changes into past form in a question, because the word Did already shows that the sentence is in the past.

4. Short Answers

Short answers are very common in everyday English. When answering, we don’t repeat the whole sentence.
We just say Yes/No + subject + did/didn’t.

✅ Examples:

• Yes, she did.

• No, she didn’t.

• Yes, I did.

• No, we didn’t.
  
  

❌ Wrong: Yes, she do / No, he don’t.

Conclusion

The past tense is simple if you remember these four rules:

1. Use subject + past verb for positives.

2. Use didn’t + base verb for negatives.

3. Use Did + subject + base verb? for questions.

4. Use Yes/No + subject + did/didn’t for short answers.