1. What is the past?

Past = time before now

Examples of the past:

2. Past actions need a different verb

Actions done in the past (yesterday; 2 days ago; last year) use the past tense. The past tense means the verb is in the past.

Present	Past	Example sentence
run	ran	I ran to school.
eat	ate	He ate the cookie.
play	played	Hugh played tennis with Angus.

Two things must be true for the past tense:

Action is finished
+
Time is finished
(basically, everything is finished)

To make the past tense, the verb needs changed.

There are two types of verb change:

This past tense = verb + ed.
However, if the verb ends in ‘consonant + y’, the ‘y’ is usually changed to ‘i’

Verb	Past tense (verb + ed)	Example
play	played	I played football yesterday.
watch	watched	He watched TV on Sunday.
walk	walked	They walked to the zoo this morning.
cook	cooked	We cooked pasta last night.
live	lived	I lived on Rose Street when I was a child.
paint	painted	Last week Anna painted the wall green.
kiss	kissed	He kissed her on Friday.
start	started	I started studying English when I was 4 years old.
study	studied	She studied chemistry at university.
try	tried	We tried to call you before we left.

Many verbs do not use +ed.
You have to learn word for the past tense.

Verb	Past tense (irregular)	Example
am/is	was	He was happy this morning.
are	were	They were angry with him this morning.
eat	ate	I ate a cake last night.
drink	drank	She drank 2 bottles of wine before dinner.
go	went	We went to the cinema on Sunday morning.
write	wrote	Dave wrote a letter to Kim 3 days ago.
buy	bought	Samantha bought a new computer last month.
sell	sold	Paul sold his computer to Samantha last month.
do	did	I did not do my homework yesterday.
take	took	At 10 o’clock they took the bus to the train station.

Yesterday I went to the shop. I bought an apple. Then I walked to school.	When I was young I liked milk and drank it every day.
5 years ago I lived in Russia. We ate Russian food every day. My mother cooked it. It was delicious.	On Saturday the girls went to the park and bought an ice cream, but it soon started to rain so they went home again.
Last week my mother sold her car. A man bought it for $10. It was very cheap, but we were very happy.	The man took the bus to the beach. Then he threw the suitcase into the sea. Finally he went to the airport and caught a flight to Mexico.