In this article four forms of Simple Past Tense example sentences are given which helps to understand how this tenses is used in real-life English communication. But before going into that, it is important to learn the basic structure and rules of simple past tense.
Simple Past Tense
To describe an action that took place at any specific point of time in the past.
Structure : Subject + verb 2 (V2) + Object
Example Sentences:
-
- He spoke to me an hour ago.
- Virat Kohli scored a century in the last match.
- Narendra Modi became the PM of India in 2014.
- We watched a movie yesterday.
- Long ago, there lived a king.
Simple past tense Example Sentences – All four forms
Like every tense, simple past tense can also be expressed in four different forms based on the situation and context.
Positive : Subject + V2 + Object
Positive Interrogative : Did +Subject + V1 + Object?
Negative : Subject + did not + V1 + Object
Negative Interrogative : Did not + Subject + V1 + Object?
This is different from the simple present tense in the way that the helping verbs used in the simple present tense are “do/does” while the one used in the past tense is ‘did’.
If we take the example “We watched a movie yesterday”, the four forms of the tense are as follows:
- Positive: We watched a movie yesterday.
- Positive Interrogative: Did we watch a movie yesterday?
- Negative: We didn’t watch a movie yesterday.
- Negative Interrogative: Didn’t we watch a movie yesterday?
Exercise:
Let us take some more examples of simple past tense and try to write the four forms of those sentences on your own.
- She lived a peaceful life.
- He cooked food for everyone today.
- The river flew across this road.
- He didn’t wash his clothes. [This one is a negative sentence, and you need to convert it into positive.
- Did you submit the assignment yesterday?
