SIMPLE PAST TENSE 

Very often the past simple ends in -ed (regular verbs):

 I work in a travel agency now. Before that I worked in a department store.

 They invited us to their party, but we decided not to go.

 The police stopped me on my way home last night.

 Laura passed her exam because she studied very hard. 

But many verbs are irregular. The past simple does not end in -ed. For example: 

write → wrote     Mozart wrote more than 600 pieces of music. 

see → saw            We saw Alice in town a few days ago. 

go → went            I went to the cinema three times last week. 

shut → shut          It was cold, so I shut the window.

In questions and negative sentences we use did/didn’t + infinitive (enjoy/see/go etc.):

I enjoyed the party a lot. Did you enjoy it? 

How many people did they invite to the wedding? I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t have any money.

‘Did you go out?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’

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

I was annoyed because they were late.

 Was the weather good when you were on holiday? 

They weren’t able to come because they were so busy. 

I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat anything. 

Did you go out last night or were you too tired?

TIME ADVERBS 

PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE 

TIME ADVERBS

I was doing something = I was in the middle of doing it at a certain time. The action or situation started before this time, but had not finished:

This time last year I was living in London.

What were you doing at 10 o’clock last night?

I waved to Helen, but she wasn’t looking.

You can say that something happened (past simple) in the middle of something else (past continuous):

Matt phoned while we were having dinner.

It was raining when I got up.

I saw you in the park yesterday. You were sitting on the grass and reading a book.

I hurt my back while I was working in the garden.

But we use the past simple to say that one thing happened aft er another:

I was walking along the road when I saw Dan. So I stopped, and we talked for a while.