Past Tense | Spoken English - Day3

What is definition of past tense?

Past tense is a English tense that indicates a form of an action or event took place.

What does past tense means?

Past tense means the action, events or anything that occurred in past not continue now. So it means it has specific a start time and the end time.

Past tense is divided into four forms.

1. Simple Past
2. Past Progressive
3. Past Perfect
4. Past Perfect Progressive

Simple Past (Subject + past participle form of verb)

What is simple past all about?

Simple past tense is indicates the actions that begun and ended at a specific point in time. It is almost same as present simple but just need to add “ed” at the end of the verb (but not always).

Examples:

I went there

You played

He danced

She laughed

He kicked

There are some verbs which need special attention in past tense. The verb which 2nd last letter is a vowel like “A, I or U” and the last letter is “G, P, L or other consonant letter”, needs an extra consonant and that is the repeat of the last letter word + “ed”

Examples:

Trap: Trap+p+ed =Trapped

Drag: Drag+g+ed =Dragged

   

And there are verbs which are ended with “E”, don’t require “ed”. We just have to add “D” at the end of the verb.

Examples:

Hope: Hope + d=Hoped

Hate: Hate + d=Hated

Live: Live + d=Lived

Past Progressive Tense (Subject + was/were + verb(+ing))

What is past progressive all about?

Past progressive tense is all about actions or events which were going on the past, which was continuous in the past but not completed. It is same as present progressing tense but here we just need to replace (is, am or are) with (was or were).

Examples:

I was going

He was dancing

You were singing

She was reading

They were laughing

Ram was cooking

Past Perfect Tense (Subject + had+ past participle form of verb)

What is past perfect all about?

Past perfect tense is all about actions in the past that finished.

Examples:

I had gone

You had danced

They had eaten

She had written

We had enjoyed

Past Perfect Progressive (Subject + had been + verb(+ing))

What is  past perfect progressive all about?

Past perfect progressive is all about actions in the past that were going on or were continuous but finished. It means action which was occurred again and again in the past.

Examples:

I had been suffering

You had been singing

She had been dancing 

They had been playing cricket

We had been reading

More Info: Past tense helping verbs (Was, Were, Had, Been)

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