Past Simple Tense - English grammar tutorial video lesson

The simple past or past simple, sometimes called the preterite, is the basic form of the past tense in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular English verbs form the simple past in -ed; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms.
The term "simple" is used to distinguish the syntactical construction whose basic form uses the plain past tense alone, from other past tense constructions which use auxiliaries in combination with participles, such as the past perfect and past progressive.

The PAST TENSE indicates that an action is in the past relative to the speaker or writer.

• when the time period has finished: "We went to Chicago last Christmas."
• when the time period is definite: "We visited Mom last week."
• with for, when the action is finished: "I worked with the FBI for two months."