Simple past (I did) в английском языке

Study this example:

Tom: Look! It's raining again.
Ann: Oh no, not again. It rained all day yesterday too.

Rained is the simple past tense. We use the simple past to talk about actions or situations in the past.

• I enjoyed the party very much.


• Mr. Brown died ten years ago.


• When I lived in Athens, I worked in a bank.

Very often the simple past ends in -ed:

• We invited them to our party, but they decided not to come.


• The police stopped me on my way home last night.


• She passed her exam because she studied very hard.

For spelling rules see this.

But many important verbs are irregular. This means that the simple past does not end in -ed:

leave	→	left	We all left the party at 11:00.

go	→	went	Last month I went to Rome to sec a friend of mine.

cost	→	cost	This house cost $75,000 in 1980.

The past of the verb be (am/is/are) is was/were:

I/he/she/it was we/you/they were

I was angry because Tom and Ann were late.

For a list of irregular verbs see this.

In simple past questions and negatives we use did/didn't + the base form (do/open, etc.):

it rained	did it rain?	it didn't rain

• Ann: Did you go out last night, Tom?
  Tom: Yes, I went to the movies. But I didn't enjoy it.


• When did Mrs. Johnson die?


• What did you do over the weekend?


• We didn't invite her to the party, so she didn't come.


• Why didn't you call me on Tuesday?

Note that we normally use did/didn't with have:

• Did you have time to write the letter?


• I didn't have enough money to buy anything to cat.

But we do not use did with the verb be (was/were):

• Why were you so angry?


• Was Mark at work yesterday?


• They weren't able to come because they were very busy.