English Language Lesson 4: Understanding the Past Simple

eCampus University Communication Sciences

English Language Lesson 4: Past Tenses I - Past Simple

e CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia
Lingua Inglese - Lesson 4 SSO
Past simple
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Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Past Simple Usage and Identification

Past simple
We use the past simple to talk about past events that have finshed.
Can you identify the past simple following text? What do you notice about it?
Martin Luther King Jr. lived from 1929-1968. He worked as an evangelical minister and then
became a leader in the civil rights movement.
He started many protests and boycotts. He helped to organize non-violent protests all over
the USA. He won the Nobel Peace Price in 1964. He died in 1968 as the victim of an
assassination.
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia
Past simple
We use the past simple to talk about past events that have finished.
Can you identify the past simple following text? What do you notice about it?
Martin Luther King Jr. lived from 1929-1968. He worked as an evangelical minister and
then became a leader in the civil rights movement.
He started many protests and boycotts. He helped to organize non-violent protests all over
the USA. He won the Nobel Peace Price in 1964. He died in 1968 as the victim of an
assassination.
Look at the verbs in the past simple. Some of these are
regular and some are irregular.
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Regular Verbs in Past Simple

Past simple - regular verbs
For regular verbs we ad -ed to make the past simple.
I work in a school. Before that I worked in a call centre.
I invited Jim to the cinema.
The car stopped just before the bus crashed.
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Irregular Verbs in Past Simple

Past simple - irregular verbs
For irregular verbs you must remember the past form. Your textbook has an extensive list in Appendix
1.
Here are some of the most common:
speak - spoke
become - became
choose - chose
drink - drank
feel - felt
fight - fought
get - got
give - gave
keep - kept
know - knew
say - said
speak - spoke
think - thought
stand - stood
understand - understood
win - won
write - wrote
sleep - slept
run - ran
hear - heard
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Past Simple Interrogative and Negative Forms

Past simple - interrogative and negative forms
For the negative and interrogative forms we use the auxiliary verb did + infinitive.

Did you like the film?
Ti è piaciuto il film?
Yeah, I really liked it!
Sì, mi è piaciuto molto!
Did you all go to the park?
No, we didn't go to the park,
Siete andati al parco?
No, non siamo andati al parco,
we went to the pool.
siamo stati in piscina.
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Past Simple of "To Be"

Past simple - BE
The past simple from of be is irregular and we do not use the auxiliary did to form the negative
and interrogative.

C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
4
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
1
Facoltà di Psicologia

Uses of Past Simple

Past simple - uses

• With adverbs or expressions of time that indicate a concluded period in the past:
  I left Berlin two years ago. Lascai Berlino due anni fa.
  I liked cartoons when I was little.
  Mi piacevano i cartoni animati da piccolo.
• Repeated actions and recurring situations in the past:
  I worked in Japan for three months.
  When we lived in the USA we spoke English.
  Ho lavorato in Giappone per tre mesi
  Quando abitavamo negli USA
  parlavamo inglese

• In narrative texts to talk about consecutive events:
Cinderella heard the clock and ran out of the royal palace
Cenerentola sentì l'orologio e corse dal palazzo reale.
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS
UNIVERSITÀ
Corso di Laurea: SCEF / SCEPI
Insegnamento: Lingua Inglese
Numero lezione: 4
Titolo: Past Simple
Psicologia

Online Podcast Recommendation

Listen to the online podcast
To help you with today's lesson listen to the BBC 6 minute grammar podcast. You can find it at the link
below, or you can search online for "past simple bbc"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/lower-intermediate/unit-6/session-
2/activity-5
I recommend listening to it twice. Pause the podcast to do the exercises.
The transcript is available online.
1
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
4/S1
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
2
Facoltà di Psicologia
Lingua inglese - Lesson 4 SS1

Past Simple Practice

Past simple practice
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
4/S1
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
2
Facoltà di Psicologia

The Story of Rosa Parks

The story of Rosa Parks.
Read the text and identify the verbs in the past simple.
That particular day that I decided was not the first time I had trouble with that particular driver. He evicted
me before, because I would not go around to the back door after I was already onto the bus. The evening
that I boarded the bus, and noticed that he was the same driver, I decided to get on anyway. I did not sit at
the very front of the bus; I took a seat with a man who was next to the window -- the first seat that was
allowed for "colored" people to sit in. We were not disturbed until we reached the third stop after I boarded
the bus. At this point a few white people boarded the bus, and one white man was left standing. When the
driver noticed him standing, he spoke to us (the man and two women across the aisle) and told us to let the
man have the seat. The other three all stood up. But the driver saw me still sitting there. He asked would I
stand up, and I said, "No, I will not." Then he said, "I'll have you arrested." And I told him he could do that.
So he didn't move the bus any further. Several black people left the bus.
Interview sourced from: http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/interview.htm
C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.ite CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ
Corso Di Laurea:
Scienze Della Comunicazione - Curr. Comunicazione Istituzionale E D'impresa
Lingua Inglese
Insegnamento:
Lezione Nº:
Titolo:
Attività Nº:
4/S1
Past Tenses I - Past Simple
2
Facoltà di Psicologia
The story of Rosa Parks.
Read the text and identify the verbs in the past simple.
That particular day, that I decided, was not the first time I had trouble with that particular driver. He
evicted me before, because I would not go around to the back door after I was already onto the bus.
The evening that I boarded the bus, and noticed that he was the same driver, I decided to get on
anyway. I did not sit at the very front of the bus; I took a seat with a man who was next to the
window -- the first seat that was allowed for "colored" people to sit in. We were not disturbed until we
reached the third stop after I boarded the bus. At this point a few white people boarded the bus, and
one white man was left standing. When the driver noticed him standing, he spoke to us (the man and
two women across the aisle) and told us to let the man have the seat. The other three all stood up.
But the driver saw me still sitting there. He asked would I stand up, and I said, "No, I will not." Then
he said, "I'll have you arrested." And I told him he could do that. So he didn't move the bus any
further. Several black people left the bus.
Interview sourced from: http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/interview.htm