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."

The Present Simple Tense

The present tense is the base form of the verb: I work in London.
But the third person (she/he/it) adds an -s: She works in London.

Use
We use the present tense to talk about:

something that is true in the present:
I’m nineteen years old.
He lives in London.
I’m a student.

something that happens again and again in the present:
I play football every weekend.

We use words like sometimes, often. always, and never (adverbs of frequency) with the present tense:

I sometimes go to the cinema.
She never plays football.

something that is always true:
The adult human body contains 206 bones.
Light travels at almost 300,000 kilometres per second.

 

something that is fixed in the future.
The school term starts next week.
The train leaves at 1945 this evening.

We fly to Paris next week.

Let's learn idioms

FALL ON DEAF EARS: be ignored, be disregarded. Jakarta Globe: <<Indonesian lawmakers’ efforts to pull Schapelle Corby into the ongoing wiretapping dispute between Australia and Indonesia fell on deaf ears on Friday as central government officials dismissed the request, telling politicians the drug trafficking convict’s case “has nothing to do with” the spy scandal.>>

Another "twofer"! To FALL FROM GRACE is to lose prestige or power. To NAME NAMES is to give the names of specific people involved in wrongdoing. Jakarta Globe, in a story about the corruption trial of legislator Angelina Sondakh: <<The one-time Miss Putri Indonesia’s dramatic fall from grace began shortly after investigators closed in on Nazaruddin. The former Democratic Party treasurer began to name names before he was even arrested, dropping clues on the involvement of fellow Democrats via Skype from his hideout in Bogota, Columbia.>>

Two for one! A SILVER LINING is a positive aspect in a negative situation. PALE IN COMPARISON: seem insignificant when compared to something else. The word "pale" is a verb here. Daily Beast: <<One silver lining for the GOP [the Republican Party] in Jackson’s shambolic campaign was the optimism that the Republicans could pick off Northam’s state Senate seat in a special election. But that paled in comparison to the costs of a statewide campaign with an outlandish, gaffe-prone candidate.>>

A note for word fans: "Shambolic" is a British word, meaning disorganized, confused, in a shambles. But it has recently started showing up in American English.

MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES: seize opportunities as they arise (because the opportunity may not last log). Both a proverb and an idiom. GhanaWeb: <<Folks, in Ghanaian politics, there is no certainty except the strong conviction among some of us that the Ghanaian politician is not to be trusted to sacrifice personal interests at the expense of the national one.
When it comes to self-serving, what is on the mind of the Ghanaian politician is nothing but making hay while the sun shines (Or as my Nigerian friend puts it: Making HASTE while the sun shines---because the sun won't shine forever!). >>