Past in negatives and questions

LEARN ENGLISH with Dan

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Improve your English today at ANGLOPOD.COM. Hi everyone, I’m Dan and today we’re going to continue looking at English tenses. In particular, we’re going to learn how to use the past simple tense in questions and negative statements.

Here’s an example. “I SPEAK English now, but I DIDN’T SPEAK English last year”. The first half of the sentence is present simple. This is true now. “I SPEAK English”. The second half of the sentence is past simple. “I DIDN’T SPEAK English last year.”

Notice how we make the negative statement in the past. The main verb SPEAK doesn’t change! We don’t say “I didn’t spoke”. We say “I DIDN’T SPEAK”. That’s because the auxiliary verb DO expresses the past. DO becomes DID NOT or DIDN’T. So we don’t need to change the main verb.

This can be verb confusing for many students, because this rule does not exist in many other languages, so it is a very common mistake to make when using English tenses. Just remember, when using the auxiliary verb DO to make the past simple, so DID or DIDN’T, don’t change the main verb as well. Leave it as a bare infinitive, in this example, SPEAK.

The rule is the same when we make questions. In the present tense, we say “DO you SPEAK English?” but in the past tense we say “DID you SPEAK English?” not “DID you SPOKE?” Again, the auxiliary verb DO expresses the past tense, so we don’t change the tense of the main verb.

DID you PRACTISE your English yesterday? DO you PRACTISE your English every day? You should! So go to ANGLOPOD.COM so you can! See you soon!

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