## The Simple Past Tense (Geçmiş Zaman) The Simple Past Tense is used to talk about actions or situations that happened in the past, at a specific time, and are now finished. It's like looking back at a snapshot of the past. ### 1. Actions Without Verbs (Was/Were) When a sentence doesn't have an action verb (like "walk," "eat," or "play"), we use "was" or "were" to describe the state of being. * **Positive:** We use "was" for singular subjects (I, he, she, it) and "were" for plural subjects (you, we, they). * **Negative:** We add "not" after "was" or "were" to make the sentence negative. * **Question:** We move "was" or "were" to the beginning of the sentence to ask a question. **Positive:** I was overweight. (Ben aşırı kiloluydum.) **Negative:** We weren't tired. (Biz yorgun değildik.) **Question:** Was she at school? (O okulda mıydı?) Think of "was" and "were" as the past tense of "am," "is," and "are." ### 2. Actions With Verbs (Past Form) When a sentence has an action verb, we use the past form of the verb to show that the action happened in the past. * **Positive:** The past form of regular verbs is formed by adding "-ed" to the base form. Irregular verbs have their own unique past forms. * **Negative:** We use "didn't" before the base form of the verb to make the sentence negative. * **Question:** We use "did" before the subject and the base form of the verb to ask a question. **Positive:** I played football. (Ben futbol oynadım.) **Negative:** I didn't play football. (Ben futbol oynamadım.) **Question:** Did you play football? (Sen futbol oynadın mı?) Remember that irregular verbs don't follow the "-ed" rule. You'll need to memorize their past forms. ### Regular Verbs Regular verbs follow a simple rule for forming the past tense: add "-ed" to the base form. However, there are a few things to keep in mind: * **Verbs ending in "-e":** Just add "-d" (e.g., love - loved). * **Verbs ending in a consonant followed by "y":** Change the "y" to "i" and add "-ed" (e.g., study - studied). * **Verbs ending in a vowel followed by "y":** Just add "-ed" (e.g., play - played). ### Irregular Verbs Irregular verbs don't follow any specific rules for forming the past tense. You'll need to memorize their past forms. Here are a few examples: | Base Form | Past Form | |---|---| | do | did | | go | went | | drink | drank | | read | read | Don't try to apply the "-ed" rule to irregular verbs. It won't work! ### Time Expressions Time expressions help us understand when an action happened in the past. Here are some common examples: * **Yesterday:** Yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening * **Last:** Last night, last week, last month, last year, last summer, last winter, last autumn, last spring * **Ago:** Three minutes ago, an hour ago, two days ago, four months ago, three years ago * **Other:** Once, once upon a time, then, the day before, the week before, the month before, the year before These time expressions help us paint a clearer picture of the past. ### Telling the Time To ask what time it is in English, we use "What time is it?" or "What is the time?" **What time is it?** (Saat kaç?) **It is one o'clock.** (Saat 1.) **It is five past one.** (Saat 1'i 5 geçiyor.) **It is quarter past one.** (Saat 1'i çeyrek geçiyor.) **It is twenty-five past one.** (Saat 1'i 25 geçiyor.) **It is half past one.** (Saat 1 buçuk.) **It is twenty to two.** (Saat 2'ye 20 var.) **It is quarter to two.** (Saat 2'ye çeyrek var.) **It is ten to two.** (Saat 2'ye 10 var.) **It is two o'clock.** (Saat 2.) Remember that "past" means "after" and "to" means "before" when telling the time. ### Telling the Dates and Years To tell the date, we use the ordinal number for the day and the month name. For the year, we use the number. **5th April → The fifth of April** **5th April 1924 → The fifth of April, nineteen twenty-four** **5th April 2019 → The fifth of April, two thousand (and) nineteen** Years before 2000 are usually read differently than years after 2000. **1921 → nineteen twenty-one** **1881 → eighteen eighty-one** **2002 → two thousand two** **2009 → two thousand nine** **2019 → twenty nineteen** **2034 → twenty thirty-four** Practice reading dates and years aloud to improve your fluency.