He is very poor, but if he had a lot of money he would be rich. We use the Simple Past in Second Conditional Clauses when we are referring to UNREAL PRESENT OR FUTURE. I will not cover them all here but I’ll do so in another free grammar lesson from DailyStep English.ħ. Please note that the grammar of WOULD RATHER and WOULD SOONER has other options as well as the Past Simple. Would you rather they didn’t visit us this weekend, as you are so busy? ( note: “would sooner” means the same as “would rather”, but “would rather” is more commonly used.) I would sooner we took an earlier train in case the later one is cancelled. So it is correct to say “I’d rather we ate…”) You need to include the subject of the Past Simple verb, which in this sentence is WE. It is incorrect to say “I’d rather ate…”. ( note: Here, we are expressing a preference about ourselves and other people. I’d rather we ate in this restaurant than in that one. We use the Past Simple after WOULD RATHER and WOULD SOONER if we want to express a preference about other people, or about ourselves and other people. So we know that the windows must be very dirty, even before I say in the second sentence that they are filthy.) They are filthy! ( note: the expression “It’s high time” expresses even more urgency. If I say “It is time to leave” this does not express urgency.) ( note: this means “We need to leave right now”. We use the Past Simple after IT’S TIME and IT’S HIGH TIME if we want to express urgency. These uses become more advanced as you move down through the lesson.ĥ. Now, let’s look at some more advanced ways to use the Past Simple in English. You can learn more about the rules of Reported Speech in another free DailyStep English Grammar Lesson. ( note: his actual words here in direct speech were “How are you?”) ( note: her actual words here in direct speech were “I have a new job.”) ( note: his actual words here in direct speech were “I am too cold.”) We use the Past Simple in Reported Speech to report what someone originally said in the Present Simple. You can learn about these soon in more free DailyStep English Grammar Lessons.Ĥ. It’s important to remember that the Past Simple expresses chronological order because sometimes we use other past tenses, the Past Continuous, the Past Perfect Simple and the Past Perfect Continuous when we want to break the chronological order. ( note: here we know that I did these things in this order: First, I woke up, second, I had a shower, and third, I prepared breakfast.) I woke up, had a shower and prepared breakfast. He needs to switch on the engine before he starts driving.) ( note: it would not be correct to say “He got in his car, drove to work and switched on the engine”, because this would not be logical. He got in his car, switched on the engine and drove to work. This means that we use the Past Simple to say what happened first, second, third and so on. We use the Past Simple to express chronological order. This rule applies no matter how recently the time finished.ģ. Notice that in the last 2 examples, this year and today are both unfinished periods of time, but we use the Past Simple because the moment that the train arrived, or that he started his new job, are both in finished time. We also use the Simple Past in sentences with Ago. So, we use the Past Simple in questions using When? What date? What time? We use the Past Simple to talk about the time or date of completed actions in the past. We use the Past Simple when we talk about completed actions in the Finished Past.Ģ. So, let’s take a look at all the different ways we can use the Past Simple in English:ġ. You need to understand the difference between Finished and Unfinished Past Time, so if you missed my free lesson on this, you can find it here. The more advanced uses are lower down in the lesson.įirst, and very important, please remember that the Past Simple is only used when we refer to Finished Past Time. Please check that you know all of these ways to use this English verb tense. But the Past Simple can also be used in some very advanced ways too. The Simple Past is the first Past Tense that you learn, because it is actually the most basic Past Tense. If you want to learn how to form the Past Simple, please click here. This will help you to remember that they are both the same thing. I use both the Past Simple and the Simple Past names for this tense in this lesson.
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