English
What is the past tense?
Quick answer
The past tense is the verb form we use for things that have already happened, like walked, ate or was playing. Regular verbs add -ed; irregular verbs change in other ways.
In one sentence
The past tense is the form of a verb that shows something happened before now.
Explained
Compare I walk to school with I walked to school. The ending -ed moves the action into the past. That change of verb form is called tense. See verbs.
Regular verbs add -ed: play → played, laugh → laughed, shout → shouted. Spelling rules apply:
- verbs ending in e just add d: bake → baked
- short verbs ending in one vowel + one consonant double it: hop → hopped, stop → stopped
- consonant + y changes to i: cry → cried, carry → carried
The -ed ending can sound like /t/ (jumped), /d/ (played) or /id/ (wanted), but it is always spelt -ed.
Irregular verbs change in their own way and simply have to be learned: go → went, eat → ate, see → saw, swim → swam, run → ran, think → thought, buy → bought, be → was / were.
The past tense has other forms too:
- Past progressive (also called the past continuous): was / were + -ing. I was reading when the phone rang.
- Past perfect: had + past participle. She had already left when we arrived.
Many grammarians, including the grammar glossary of the national curriculum in England, say English strictly has only two tenses, past and present; other meanings (like the future) are made with helping verbs such as will. Children do not need that detail early on, but it explains why some textbooks call "future tense" a form rather than a tense.
clock
book
pencil
Examples
| Present | Past | Past progressive |
|---|---|---|
| I cook | I cooked | I was cooking |
| she runs | she ran | she was running |
| we sing | we sang | we were singing |
| they write | they wrote | they were writing |
- Last summer we visited our cousins in Abuja.
- The fox crept closer while the hens were sleeping.
Common mistakes
- "I goed / I runned." Very common in young children and a sign they have learned the -ed rule. Model the right form: Yes, you went!
- Local spoken forms in writing. Use we were, I did and I saw, not we was, I done, I seen.
- Slipping into the present halfway through a story. Re-read and check every verb.
Quick quiz
Past tense
Check what you know with 5 quick questions.
Question 1 of 5
What is the past tense of jump?
Practise it
Try it
Spelling practice with -ed words
For grown-ups
Related topics
Verbs
A verb is a word for an action (run, eat, write) or a state of being (is, seem, know). Almost every sentence has one, and verbs change to show tense.
Present tense
The present tense is the verb form for things happening now, things that are always true, and habits, like I walk, she walks or we are walking.
Suffixes
A suffix is a group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning or job, like -ful in helpful, -ness in kindness or -ed in jumped.
Sentences
A sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense on its own. It starts with a capital letter, ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, and usually has a verb.
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes a noun, telling you what kind, which one or how many, like a huge elephant, a sour lemon or three red balloons.
Adverbs
An adverb gives more information about a verb, adjective or another adverb, telling how, when, where or how often, like slowly, tomorrow, outside or always.