Unit #1

 Simple past
Definition

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.

Examples:

• John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.
• My father died last year.
• He lived in Fiji in 1976

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions.

• frequency: often, sometimes, always I sometimes walked home at lunchtime. I often brought my lunch to school.
• a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago We saw a good film last week. Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva. She finished her work atseven o'clock I went to the theatre last night
• an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago People lived in caves a long time ago.She played the piano when she was a child.

————————————°°°°°°°°—————————

Text example in simple past

ally left home when she was 18. She didn’t want to go to university, so she went to work in a book shop in London. One day, a customer came to the store. His name was Bill. He liked Sally, and asked her out.

They went out to dinner and had a nice time. Bill told Sally that he worked in a bank in the financial district.

Sally liked Bill, too. She smiled and said that she hoped she would see him again.

Nobody is sure how it happened, but Sally and Bill fell hopelessly in love, and ended up getting married. They moved into a small flat together, and paid incredibly high rent for a few years, until Sally announced that she was pregnant.

Bill asked for a loan from the bank so they could buy a nicer flat in a friendlier neighborhood outside London, and a few months later Sally had her baby. They named the baby Andrea.

Like most Europeans in the year 2005, they were very happy…