PAST TENSE VERBSDylan Hoang

Janiecha McMillian

What are Past tense verbs?

The English language has three basic tenses: past, present, and future.

Within these verb tenses, there is a perfect form to indicate completed action, a progressive form to indicate ongoing action, and a perfect progressive form to indicate ongoing action that will be completed at some definite time.

What a re Pas t Tense Verbs?(con t . )

The main purpose of Past Tense Verbs is to express activity, action, state, or being in the past.

For example : “We visited the grocery store yesterday.”

-Visited is a simple past tense verb that is used to describe a completed action.

“Emily said that she went to the mall.”

-Said is a past perfect tense verb that describes reported speech.

Forming Past Tense Verbs

Simple Form: Although most past tense verbs end in -ed, certain verbs have irregular past tense forms that do not follow this rule.

Use the simple past tense when you specify a past time or event

For example: World War I soldiers suffered in the trenches.

When the sequence of past events is indicated with words like before or after, use the simple past for both events.

For example: She knew how to write her name before she went to school.

Use past tenses in an indirect quotation ( a reported quotation, not in quotation marks) introduced by a past tense verb.

For example: His chiropractor told him that the adjustments were over.

Past Progressive Form: Use the past progressive for an activity in progress over time or at a specified point in the past. (Use was/were with the verb form ending in -ing.)

For example: Abraham Lincoln was attending the theatre when he was assassinated.

Past Perfect Form: Use the past perfect only when one past event was completed before another past even or stated past time. (Use had with the past participle of the verb.)

For example: Been had cooked the whole meal by the time Sam arrived. [Two events occurred: Ben cooked the meal; then Sam arrived.]

Past Perfect Progressive Form: Like Past Perfect use Past Perfect progressive only when one past event was completed before another past even or stated past time. (This tense is most often created by using had been and the present perfect of the verb) (most often the verb form ending in -ing).

For example: He had been cooking for three hours when his sister finally offered to help. [An even in progress-cooking-was interrupted in the past]

Work Cited

"Past Tense Verbs." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow, n.d. Web. 26 September 2012. <http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/verbs/Past-Tense-Verbs.html>.