Form
| I went | I didn’t go | Did I go? |
| You went | You didn’t go | Did you go? |
| He went | She didn’t go | Did it go? |
| We went | We didn’t go | Did we go? |
| They went | They didn’t go | Did they go? |
We use the past simple to talk about actions and states which we see as completed in the past.
Specific Point in Time
We can use it to talk about a specific point in time.
- She came back last Friday.
- I saw her in the street.
- They didn’t agree to the deal.
A Period of Time
It can also be used to talk about a period of time.
- She lived in Tokyo for seven years.
- They were in London from Monday to Thursday of last week.
- When I was living in New York, I went to all the art exhibitions I could.
Used with time expressions
You will often find the past simple used with time expressions such as these:
- Yesterday
- three weeks ago
- last year
- in 2002
- from March to June
- for a long time
- for 6 weeks
- in the 1980s
- in the last century
- in the past