Menggunakan Past Simple

Past simple digunakan untuk menyatakan kejadian yang telah terjadi pada masa lalu dengan waktu yang spesifik
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Coba kita pelajari paragraf dibawah ini :

Wolfgang Amendeus Mozartwas an Austrian musician and composer. He lived from 1756 to 1791. He started composing at the age of five and wrote more than 600 pieces of music. He was only 35 years old when he died.

Lived/started/wrote/was/died semuanya menunjukkan past simple.

Biasanya past simple berakhiran dengan –ed. (regular verb). Misalnya seperti kalimat berikut :

• I work in a travel agency now. Before that I worked in a department store.
• We invited them to our party. But they decided not to come.
• The police stopped me on my way home last night.
• Laura passed her examination because she studied very hard .

Tetapi kita juga tahu bahwa banyak verb tidak beraturan (irregular verbs) yang tidak berakhiran dengan –ed. Sebagai contoh :

•  Write menjadi wrote, Mozart wrote more than 600 pieces of music.
•  See menjadi saw, we saw Rose in town a few days ago.
•  Go menjadi went, I went to the cinema three times last week.
•  Shut menjadi shut, it was cold , so I shut the window.

Bagaimana menggunakan simple past dalam bentuk negative dan pertanyaan ?

	Questions	Negatives
I enjoyed	Did you enjoy?	I didn’t enjoy
She saw	Did she see?	She didn’t see
They went	Did they go?	They didn’t go

Coba kita perhatikan dari bentuk percakapan dibawah ini :

A             : Did You go last night?

B             : Yes, I went to the cinema, but I didn’t enjoy the film much. 

Ketika kita membuat pertanyaan maka Did + Subject + Kata kerja 1, Untuk menjawab kita gunakan bentuk simple past  Subject + Kata kerja 2 dan ketika kita menyatakan bentuk negatif kita menggunakan rumus Subject + didn't + Kata kerja 1

• When did Mr. Thomas die? About 10 years ago.
• They didn’t invite her to the party, so she didn’t go.
• Did you have time to write the letter? No I didn’t.

Ada kalanya kita menggunakan “do” sebagai kata kerja utama. Pada contoh berikut , “do“ digunakan sebagai kata kerja utama pada kalimat (did…do/didn’t do)

• What did you do the weekend? ( bukan what did you at the weekend ).
• I didn’t do anything. (bukan I didn’t anything)

Bentuk past dari am/is/are adalah was/were

I/he/she     was/wasn’t	Was I/he/she/it
We/you/they   were/weren’t	Were we / you /they

Perhatikan bahwa kita tidak menggunakan “Did” pada bentuk  negative dan bentuk pertanyaan dengan was/were.

• I was angry because they were late.
• Was the weather good when you were on holiday?
• They weren’t able to come because they were so busy.
• Did you go out last night or were you too tired?