The Past Simple / Le Prétérit Simple

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Video Transcript Hello everybody and welcome back to English with Kathryn.

Bienvenue aujourd'hui, on va parler du passé.

Today we are going to talk about the past simple. Mais cette vidéo va être en anglais car il faut pratiquer votre comprehension orale, non? Most of my students make the following mistakes.

1. They either use the present simple tense to talk about the past. Like I go to the dentist yesterday, or I see him last week. This is what I call lazy English.

2. Or they translate word for word from their language. For example, French people have the prétérit, which uses the auxiliary verb have, and the past participle

J'ai fait mes devoirs hier soir. I did my homework yesterday, but it's translated word for word into, I have done my homework last night. So they are actually using the present perfect here and not the past simple, the present perfect is incorrect in this sentence. I talk more about the present. Perfect in another video, take a look at that.

But in this video, I will

- explain the structure of the past simple talk about regular and irregular verbs. Yeah, I know. They're the nasty ones.

- how to use the past simple in the negative and in questions.

- talk about the pronunciation of ed endings, which I know many of you have problems with and hang around to the end of the lesson, because

- I will give you some tips on how to remember those irregular verbs more easily, and then there's a quiz. So you can test your knowledge on all of that.

Okay. Let's get started on how to form the past simple, but first let's look at a little story with some past simple verbs.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military leader. He was born in 1769. He became a general at the age of 24 and won many battles for France. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him to go further. And he became the first emperor of the French in 1804. Napoleon's last battle was the battle of Waterloo on the 18th of June 18, 15, Napoleon surrendered in July 1815, and died in 1821 while in captivity.

These are all examples of the past simple. We use it to talk about things in the past that are finished very often. The past simple ends in ed. We just add ed to the end of the verb. These of course are regular verbs. For example,

We asked him to come to the concert, but he declined

Paul cooked dinner, and his wife cleaned up after

Who decided on this movie. It's terrible.

Now you try : wash + fixed Yes, very good. It's washed and fixed both regular verbs, but many verbs are irregular. And this is where the past simple does not end in ed. For example, win changes to won. Write changes to wrote, go changes to went and cut doesn't change. It's just cut.

To be changes to was or were, depending on the subject.

Irregular verbs are a pain because they just don't follow a pattern. There isn't one rule you can use for all of them. And most of the common verbs are irregular.

Thankfully. However, there are not that many irregular verbs and there are ways you can memorize them more easily in a minute. I will give you some great tips on how to remember them.

Now let's look at questions and negatives in the past simple. We use did and didn't plus the infinitive. For example, go see, do et cetera. The positive is

I saw,

he learned

we did

the negative is

I didn't see.

He didn't learn

We didn't do

and questions we use Did,

Did I see?

Did he learn?

Did we do?

The verb to be, is a little different. The past of be is was or were, the positive is

I was,

we were

The negative is

I wasn't,

we weren't

Questions:

Was I?

Were you? Or

were we?

Take this conversation as a typical example, using the past simple in all its forms.

Did you see the movie last night?

No, I didn't watch TV last night.

Oh, that's a pity. It was great. It was about the environment and how we can reverse climate change.

Well, I went for a walk and picked up pieces of rubbish on the footpath. So I did my bit for the environment.

Okay. Now try yourself the same conversation. See if you can remember how to conjugate these verbs in the past simple. (watch video to try)

Well done. Now let's move on to the pronunciation of those ed endings, all regular firms in the past simple finish in ed like this one, but do we pronounce it failt, failed or fail-ed, but there's also a lot of adjectives that end in ed as well, like assorted amused captivated. So this little pronunciation lesson will not just help with the past simple pronunciation, but with many other words as well. Okay. There are three different ways we can pronounce ed endings with a T sound with a D sound and with an ed sound. So if the verb ends in a T or a D sound, then the pronunciation is 'id'. Want changes to wanted, decide changes to decided. Note here that decide actually ends in the letter E but it's a D sound decide. The E is silent.

If the verb doesn't end in a T or a D sound like we saw in the previous examples, the only other choices is that this ed ending sounds like a T or it sounds like a D with a silent E in fact, but it doesn't really matter to be honest, if you try and say D or a T sound, because when they come out, it sounds really, really similar.

All we have to do is to not use the ed ending when necessary. Just to give you a clear example, clear picture, let's take two examples.

Stopped ends in a T sound stopped. But if I try to pronounce it with a D sound, it's almost exactly the same stopped, stopped to me it sounds the same. And this is especially the case when you were speaking naturally, and the words run into each other. We often don't pronounce the ends of words. Anyway, for example,

I stopped by the shop yesterday. I stopped by the shop yesterday. (OK, you really need to watch the youtube video to get this)

I don't even pronounce the D let's take another example. Allowed finishes in a D sound allowed. But if I try to say it in a T sound in a sentence, it sounds the same. I'm allowed inside the building. I'm allowed inside the building. It's kind of hard to make it a T sound. In fact, so basically what I'm saying is that there are really only two sounds. You need to remember for these ed endings, the ID sound after verbs that end in a T or a D sound. And for all other verbs, we just use the TD sound on its own. Some practice for you.

Pause the video and try saying these words out loud.

How did you go Liked, yes, it's a T slash D sound because like L I K E doesn't end in a T or a D sound.

Started notice that ed started because start finishes in a T's start. So we have to add the sound afterwards. Fished fished. It is not fissured good. It is fished or fished with the D or the T sound. It doesn't matter because the sound is so similar. So I hoped that helped you to remember how to pronounce the ed endings.

So let's get back to those tricky irregular verbs. How do we remember all of them. In the entire English language there are about 200 irregular verbs. I have put a link to the full list in the description of this video. If we remember that there were about 170,000 words in the English language, 200 is not a lot to remember. Is it? Nevertheless 200 is still 200. So how do we remember them? Here are five great tips to make it easier for you.

1.Number one, learn by heart. The 10, most common irregular verbs. And here they are. Pause the video to take a couple of minutes to learn them now. Yeah. Now say said, go went come came know knew get got, give, gave be was were find, found, think thought see saw, okay. Quick test. What is the past tense of find? Yes. It's found what is the past tense of get? Yes, it's got and the past of come came, that's right. Nice.

2. One another cool way to remember past simple irregular verbs is through games. The McMillan dictionary has a fun little game to learn. You just spin the wheel and it will land on a verb. And you put in the tenses. Flashcards are another great way to learn on this website ESL flashcards, you can download some irregular verbs, print them out, cut them up and practice with them. Another fun game you can play is to listen to a text and try to write down all the simple passwords that you hear. This will also help you with spelling. I tell a story in the simple past, on my website, you can download the audio and transcript from a link in the description.

3. The third way is to put the past simple into sentences. I feel personally that there is no better way to learn vocabulary than to put them in your own sentences that relate to your life. You could make any verb relative to your own life. All you have to do is have a list of irregular verbs in front of you. And imagine a scenario. For example, if you have a cat, you can say, my cat slept all day yesterday, but came out at night. Then he crept up on me while I was working on my computer. This way, you not only use the verb, but you get a visual of your cat sleeping and creeping. And so you will remember it more easily.

Or if you like TV series on Netflix, like Outlander. For example, in my case, you can make a sentence like as Jamie rode his horse through the forest, he felt anxious about Claire's safety. Okay? I'm not being very imaginative there, but you get my drift.

4. The fourth way to remember these verbs easily is to group them together. For example, take a group where the verbs don't change. For example, cut, cut, put, put cost, cost, burst, burst, and go down through the list and find these common verbs. Another group could be verbs where only one vowel changes awake, awoke arise, arose clean clung begin began. A third group could be words where you lose a vowel shoot shot. Choose chose. Feed fed. You can look through the list of verbs and find patterns by yourself.

5. The final way of learning irregular verbs in the past simple is to make a rap song. Here's a funny video. I found where a teacher made a rap song for the verbs in the past simple and it's excellent in my opinion, take a look. Or here's another one. Or you can learn through real songs. All the links of these videos are in the description of this video.

Okay. So that's the end of the video. Do you feel a bit more confident about learning the past simple. Now, are you ready to do the quiz? Let's go. (click on video for quiz) Thanks for watching everybody. And don't forget these other videos to help you learn the tenses, the future tense and the present. Perfect. Thanks for sticking around and see you all very, very soon. Bye bye.