The simple past (sometimes called the second verb form) is a very common verb form in English. Almost 20% of verbs in English are in this form. It is the second most common verb form, after the simple present.

Using the Simple Past

The simple past is used for actions that happened at a particular time in the past. They started and finished in the past. When you are telling a story about something that happened in the past, most main verbs will be in the simple past.

**Chart for Simple Past Tense in English**

The examples below illustrate the rules we generally follow when using this verb form

Examples

Here are some examples of regular verbs in the simple past:

Magellan landed in the Philippines in 1521.

Susan cooked us an amazing dinner last night!

I wanted a puppy when I was a child.

We needed lots of money to buy the new car.

England defeated Spain in the match last night.

Here are some examples of irregular verbs in the simple past:

Last night I saw a movie.

Back in June, I went to Paris.

I had a party last weekend. All my friends came.

We lost the match by three points.

I found my t-shirt under the bed.

Forming the Simple past Tense

Formula

Regular verbs take -ed to form the simple past tense.

subject + VERBed

In some cases, this requires doubling the last consonant in the word. Irregular verbs do not follow this pattern.

When you use this verb form, you almost always need to identify a specific time in the past when the action happened. Sometimes this tense is referred to as the second verb form.

Conjugation

The table below shows the complete conjugation of the verb work in the simple past:

  
Simple Past Tense Verb Conjugation
  
    Singular
    Plural
  
    1st person
    I 
    worked.
    we 
    worked.
  
    2nd person
    you 
    worked.
    you 
    worked.
  
    3rd person
    he 
    worked.
    they 
    worked.
  
    she 
    worked.
    
    it 
    works.

Notes

Generally, when we use the past tense, it is important that the speaker and listener know the specific time. For example, just saying I went to the movies is unusual.