1. Isabel bought a lot of things for Paco

Icono IDevice The Simple Past Tense: Isabel went shopping
Isabel went shopping on her own. She bought a lot of things for Paco since she thought that his son needed some useful and necessary articles for his journey. She didn't want to worry Paco, so Isabel decided to do some shopping.
By Roo Reynolds. Creative Commons

Isabel saw too much useful stuff for Paco, but she knew she could not buy so many things.

Paco wanted to carry a lot of articles with him, although he knew that he could buy anything he would need anywhere.

At the end, he changed his mind and he tried to take just a few things, the most necessary ones.

As Paco likes video recording and photography a lot, he took his two cameras for sure, but he had some doubts about taking his laptop with him.


Try to identify all the simple past affirmative forms you can find in the text, either regular or irregular ones.


Icono de iDevice Solved exercise
went
can
bought to know
thought to have
needed to want
decided to buy
saw to go
could to need
wanted to try
knew to think
changed to take
tried to see
liked to decide
took to change
had to like
Match the Simple Past forms on the left with their infinitive verbs on the right.

Icono de IDevice de pregunta Self Assessment activity
The Simple Past affirmative form is formed:
  
by adding -ed to the main verb, like wanted (< to want).
by adding -ing to the main verb.

We can distinguish an irregular verb:
  
because it ends in -ed.
We can't distinguish it by its form.

Icono IDevice Curiosity: Do you know the difference between England and Britain?
By Matt Lewis. Creative Commons

 

Three countries make up Great Britain: England, Scotland and Wales. So England is a part of Great Britain, and a Scotsman is British, too. A person born in Wales is Welsh, and they are British, too. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom.


So the UK is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the last of which is not a part of Great Britain. The formal name of the country is the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, but in everyday speech Britain is often used to mean the UK, though, as you have seen, this is not perfectly correct.

The word “great” was added to “Britain” several hundred years ago, in the Middle Ages, when the English kings had lands in what is now France, and a certain part of it was called Britanny. To avoid confusion, they added the word “great” to the name of the land which was larger.

 


Icono IDevice Further knowledge

In order to enlarge your knowledge and to solve some possible doubts you may find with the Simple Past Tense, have a look here.

In case you need further practice, then click here.


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