ISI Swear EnglishLearn English Online

Verb Tenses - Lesson 104

Past Simple - Irregular Verbs

Lesson 104 - learn the past simple with irregular verbs: how to form it, when to use it, clear examples and a short video from a British English teacher.

I Swear English › Verb Tenses › Past Simple - Irregular Verbs

How to form and use the past simple

How To Form The Past Simple with irregular verbs:

1st Column
Compliment		 2nd Column
Past Simple Affirmitive		 3rd Column
Past Participle
eat ate eaten
become became become

To form the past simple affirmative of an irregular verb, take a subject and after that put the word in the second column of the irregular verb table. Like this we get: I ate. To construct negative sentences, take a subject, then put the auxiliary did, next put not and finally put the word in the first column of the irregular verb table, which is the same as the compliment of the verb. Do not Use column 2 for this. Like this we get: I did not eat. To make questions use the auxiliary did, followed by a subject, followed by the word in the first column (the compliment). Like this we get: Did I eat? If you wish you can put a question word before to give: What did you eat? The table below shows the form of the past simple for irregular verbs:

Affirmative Negative Interrogative
I ate I did not eat Did I eat?
You ate You did not eat Did you eat?
He ate He did not eat Did he eat?
She ate She did not eat Did she eat?
It ate It did not eat Did it eat?
We ate We did eat Did we eat?
You ate You did not eat Did you eat?
They ate They did not eat Did they eat?

The following video explains how to form the past simple with irregular verbs:

Watch the video lesson

Video transcript

How to form the past simple with irregular verbs. OK the irregular verbs for example to eat: eat, ate, eaten. They normally come in 1... 2... 3... columns. The first column is the compliment, the infinitive without to. The second column is for the past simple and in this tense we need to use the words from the second column. How to use them I will explain more in a minute. The third column is the past participle and for other tenses. SO, for past simple column 2. So to make affirmative statements in the past simple with irregular verbs, take a subject I and then the word from column 2. I ate. Eat, ate, eaten, column 2. I ate, you ate, he ate, she ate, it ate, we ate, you ate, they ate. And this is the only place where we use column 2. To make negatives we use the auxiliary did, followed by not, followed by the compliment of the verb. Column 1. So to make past statements in the negative with irregular verbs, I did not eat, column 1. I did not eat, column 1. Not I did not ate, no. I did not eat, you did not eat, he did not eat, she did not eat, we did not eat, you did not eat, they did not (or didn't) eat. To make questions invert the position of the subject and the auxiliary did. Did I eat? Again column 1. OK? Did you eat? Did he eat? Did she eat? Did it eat? Did we eat? Did you eat? Did they eat? So notice we only use the irregular part for affirmative statements, I ate. Negative, no, did I eat, no that's a question, in the negative I didn't eat. I got those the wrong way round, OK? So... the second column for affirmative statements only. So, for example write. Write, wrote, written. I wrote, but in the negative, I didn't write. Understand, I understood in the positive, but negative, I didn't understand. SO remember when making the past simple, use the second column (eat, ATE, understand, UNDERSTOOD) for positive formation. So, I'll see you in the next video and we'll learn some more. See you soon.

Keep learning

This lesson is part of our free English Verb Tenses course. Work through the series in order, or jump to the tense or structure you need next.

All verb tenses lessons →