TALKING ABOUT THE PAST-PAST SIMPLE TENSE PROBLEM

Many students don’t have any problems with forming the past simple tense.  English has it’s fair share of irregular verbs; was, ate, ran, bought, but in general the ‘ed’ ending can be added to verbs to form the past simple tense.  For example; walked, enjoyed, lived, started, stopped and decided.  The past simple problem begins when students want to communicate a negative statement in the past simple.  Take a look at the sentence structure of positive statements, questions and negative statements in the past simple tense. 

Positive Statement	Past Simple
Subject	Verb – Past Simple
I	decided
She	saw
They	went

Question	Past Simple
Auxiliary Verb – Past Simple	Subject	Verb – Stem form
Did	you	decide?
Did	she	see?
Did	they	go?

Note that once we use the “do” verb as an auxiliary verb to form a question about the past it is changed into the past simple tense and the action verb is maintained in the stem or original form.
“Did you decide to go to the dance?” – We are asking a question related to the past and we must use the past simple tense but only for the auxiliary ‘do’ verb at the beginning of the sentence.  All verbs which follow would be in the stem form of the verb.

Negative Statement	Past Simple
Subject	Auxiliary Past Simple + not	Verb – Stem form
I	didn’t	decide
She	didn’t	see
They	didn’t	go

In a negative statement the sentence structure is subject + the auxiliary ‘do’ verb in the past simple + not + action verb in the stem form.  This is where many EFL students make their mistakes.  It is important to remember that the auxiliary ‘do’ verb is the only verb which requires the past simple tense and, as always, all the verbs which follow will be in the stem or original form (see, go, walk, run, jump). 
“I didn’t decide on the movie.” NOT “I didn’t decided on the movie.”
“She didn’t realise what she was doing.” NOT “She didn’t realised what she was doing.”

If you have any questions or need further clarification please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or email me.