12A — Past Simple: Regular and Irregular Verbs

1. Using “was” and “were” (past of be)

• We use was and were to talk about states or locations in the past. When we use them, we don’t use another past verb.

Examples:

• I was at the museum yesterday.
• She was very tired last night.
• They were on the bus.
• We weren’t in class this morning.
• Was he a teacher? → Yes, he was. / No, he wasn’t.

❌ Not: He was tired?

✔ Correct: Was he tired?

2. Regular Verbs

• Regular past simple verbs end in -ed (or -d if the verb ends in -e).

Examples:

• We played football yesterday.
• They worked all weekend.
• I didn’t play tennis.
• Did you like the film?

Spelling notes:

• live → lived
• stop → stopped
• study → studied
• dance → danced

3. Irregular Verbs

• Irregular verbs do not follow the -ed rule. You must memorize them.

Examples:

• go → went
• have → had
• do → did
• get → got
• see → saw

Negative and Question Forms

We use did / didn’t + base form:

• I didn’t go out.
• Did she see the film?

Quiz 1