THE SIMPLE PAST

The Simple Past is used to talk about actions or situations in the past. It is also called Past Simple.

These words tell you what tense you have to use. For the Simple Past these are expressions of time in the past.

yesterday
last week
a month ago
in 2012

HOW TO FORM THE SIMPLE PAST

- with regular verbs: infinitive + -ed 

- with irregular verbs: 2nd column of the table of the irregular verbs

Affirmative sentences:

Use the same form of the verb every time regardless the subject.

regular verbs	irregular verbs
I played football.	I went to the supermarket.

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Negative sentences:

Use the auxiliary did (Simple Past of do) every time regardless the subject.

regular verbs	irregular verbs
I did not play football.	I did not go to the supermarket.

NOTE: Short forms in negative sentences in the Simple Past are used quite often.

regular verbs	irregular verbs
I didn't play football.	I didn't go to the supermarket.

---

Questions:

Use the auxiliary did (Simple Past of do) every time regardless the subject.

regular verbs	irregular verbs
Did you play football?	Did I go to the supermarket?

SIMPLE PAST - SPELLING

You have to know all forms of the irregular verbs very well. For the Simple Past you need the form of the verb which can be found in the 2nd column of the table of the irregular verbs.
go - went - gone

Add -ed with regular verbs.

regular verbs
infinitive + -ed

Sometimes the are exceptions in spelling when adding -ed.

1) consonant after short, stressed vowel at the end of the word

Double the consonant.
stop – stopped
swap - swapped

If the consonant is not stressed, we do not double it:
benefit - benefited (Here we stress the first 'e', not the 'i'.) In British English we double one -l at the end of the word:
travel - travelled

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2) one -e at the end of the word

Add only -d.
love – loved
save – saved

3) verbs ending in -y

verbs ending in 'y' preceded by a vowel (a, e, i, o, u): Add -ed.

Example:
I play - he played

verbs ending in 'y' preceded by a consonant: Change 'y' to 'i' Then add -ed.

Example:
I hurry - he hurried

Now practice with some exercises:

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

Exercise 5

Exercise 6

Exercise 7

IRREGULAR VERBS EXERCISES

50 of the most common irregular verbs pronunciation

Irregula verbs with interactive pronunciation

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

Exercise 5

Exercise 6

Exercise 7

Exercise 8

Irregular verbs game

War of the words game

IRREGULAR VERBS PROJECT

Irregular Verbs from Nines Picado

STIR - UP SUNDAY

The last Sunday of the Christian Church Year. A traditional day to make the Christmas pudding.

CHRISTMAS  PUDDING DAY
recipe here

Stir-up Sunday is the traditional day for everyone in the family to take a turn at stirring the Christmas pudding, whilst making a wish. 
Before Christmas pudding were sold ready-made in foil containers, there were always made at home. They were made a month before Christmas day so the flavours had plenty of time to develop befoere Christmas.

INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S DAY 20th NOVEMBER

International Children’s day

The Children’s day (or Children’s rights day) is celebrated every 20th of November ; This day marks the anniversary of theInternational convention for Children’s rights of November 20th 1989.

 November 20th : Children’s rights Day

History of Children’s Day

In 1954, the UN recommended that « every country should introduce a Children’s Day which will be devoted to fraternity and to comprehension among children of the world, and which will stand out by activities encouraging Children’s well-being throughout the world. » (1)

If the UN « suggests to governments of each states to observe children’s Day on the day and in the way that best suit them », events of 1959 and 1989 designate inevitably the 20th November.

In fact, on November 20th 1959, the UN adopted the Children’s rights declaration, and on November 20th 1989, almost all of the states taking part in the UN ratified the International Convention for Children’s rights.To this day, only the United-States and Somalia have not ratified this convention

4º ESO. PRESENT PERFECT VS SIMPLE PAST

Three graded exercises to practise the difference between these two tenses -

 a) multiple choice;

 b) completing sentences;

c) verb search + table filling.

Some basic usage rules are supplied for students to check the difference in use. Hope you enjoy it.

PRESENT PERFECT vs PAST SIMPLE

4º ESO. PRESENT PERFECT - SIMPLE PAST: NEGATIVE FORMS

Click the correct form: you can choose Present Perfect Simple (hasn´t / haven´t ... ) or Simple Past (didn´t ...).

Click here to start:
NEGATIVE FORMS
 

PRESENT PERFECT VS SIMPLE PAST

Try these 3 exercises of Present Perfect and Simple Past.

Click on the link to start:

EXERCISES

PRESENT PERFECT - SONG EXERCISE

A nice song to revise the Present Perfect. It´s short but the song is beautiful!

Enjoy in the following link:

SONG EXERCISE

PRESENT PERFECT: JUST,YET, STILL, ALREADY

Exercise to practise present perfect with adverbs: just,yet, still, already.

Listen to the song and do the exercises.

PRESENT PERFECT - ADVERBS

4º ESO. PRESENT PERFECT

Complete the sentences with the verb in the Present Perfect.

PRESENT PERFECT

4º ESO. PRESENT PERFECT MULTIPLE CHOICE

Some gap filling and multiple choice exercises to help you with the differences between present perfect and simple past. Hope it´s useful.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

PRESENT PERFECT: YET, ALREADY, JUST, STILL

Practice the Present Perfect and the adverbs with the following exercises:

EXERCISE 1

EXERCISE 2

PRESENT CONTINUOUS AND VOCABULARY

The House

Home Vocabulary

Home Exercises

The Present Continuous / Progressive

The use of the present continuous tense

• We use the present continuous (am/is/are + -ing)  to talk about actions happening at the time of speaking.

John is in his car. He is in his way to work.   He is driving to work This means he is driving now: “at the time of speaking” This is the present continuous.

Present Continuous Exercises: 1,2, 3, 4, 5  6 7 8 9 10,11,12 13 14 15 16 17 

Sophie is working in Cairo this week. Oliver, Alfie and Daisy are working hard for their end-of-year exams.

GREENWICH TIME

On 13 October 1884 Greenwich, in London was established as the Universal Time meridian of longitude - from which all World time zones are based. The Royal Observatory Greenwich is where East meets West at the Greenwich Meridian Line (0° longitude).

What is longitude? 

Longitude is the location of a place east or west of a north-south line called theprime meridian. The Prime Meridian divides the Earth into the eastern and western hemisphere.

Why was Greenwich chosen?

There are an infinite number of possible meridians, each stretching from the North to the South Pole, and any one of these could have been chosen. However, the Greenwich Meridian was pre-eminent because it had already been adopted by both the UK and USA and was therefore being used by 72% of the world's shipping.

GAMES TO LEARN ENGLISH

Games to learn English is a site for students of English as a foreign language. 

A website to practise your English and have fun at the same time.

Enjoy playing games!!!

EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES 26th September

Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans represented in the Council of Europe's 47 member states are encouraged to learn more languages, at any age, in and out of school. Being convinced that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent, the Council of Europe promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.

On the occasion of the day, a range of events are organised across Europe: activities for and with children, television and radio programmes, language classes and conferences. National authorities and the various partners are given a free hand to organise activities. To coordinate the activities organised at national level, the Council of Europe asks participating countries to nominate "National Relay Persons" for the day.

 

WORLD WIDE WEB

british festivals .... folklore ... anniversaries .... on this d On 6 August 1991, Tim Berners-Lee released his text-based Web software to the public creating the beginnings of the World Wide Web and general public use of the Internet. What is the World wide Web? The World Wide Web is a system of text links and multimedia capabilities that make the Internet accessible to mass audiences. Who is Tim Berners-Lee? Tim Berners-Lee is the primary inventor of the software program known as the World Wide Web. In 1989, Berners-Lee and his CERN colleagues created a communications protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that standardised communication between computer servers and clients. Tim Berners-Lee was born on 8 June 1955 in London, England. Timeline of the WWW 1971: First email is sent by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson 1989 March:Tim Berners-Lee coins the term World Wide Web (www) 1994: First full-text Web search engine is launched – the WebCrawler 1995: September, eBay is launched 1996 4 July - Hotmail is launched commercially, linking America’s Independence Day with freedom on the internet 1998 September - Google is launched 1999 The first large peer-to-peer file-sharing network is launched – Napster 2003 April - iTunes is launched by Apple 2003 August - MySpace launched helping to break the music careers of singers including Lily Allen and bands like Arctic Monkeys 2003 February - Social network site Facebook and sharing application Flickr launched 2005 February - Video-sharing site YouTube 2006 March – Twitter launched

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OBAMA

Barack Obama was born 4 August 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Why is Barack Obama famous?

Barack Obama is the present President of the United States and the first African-American ever to hold the office of U.S. Commander-in-Chief.  
Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on 4 November 2008, and sworn in on 20 January 2009.

Quick Facts about Barack Obama

Born: August 4, 1961 (Hawaii)
Lives in: Chicago, Illinois
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Height: 6′ 1″ (1.87m)
Family: Married wife Michelle in 1992, 2 daughters Malia and Sasha
Parents: Barack Obama, Sr. (from Kenya) and Ann Dunham (from Kansas)

THE FIRST UNION FLAG

On 28th July, 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, the Union Flag was by royal proclamation made the National flag of Great Britain. The National Flags of Scotland and England were united to form the flag.

When the red cross of England was put onto the flag of Scotland, a white border was added around the red cross for reasons of heraldry. (The rules of heraldry demanded that two colours must never touch each other.)

The Union Flag today

Today's Union Flag not only represents Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) but also Northern Ireland.

On 1 January 1801, Ireland was united with Great Britain and it became necessary to have a new National Flag in which Ireland was represented. The cross St Patrick was combined with the Union Flag of Great Britain, to create the Union Flag that has been flown ever since.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland were all joined together and called the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The name was later changed to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when the greater part of Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1921.

The flags of the Patron Saints of England, Scotland and Ireland are represented on the Union Flag.

ST CHRISTOPHER - 25TH JULY

The 25 July is St Christopher's day. He is the patron saint of travelling and travellers, mariners, ferrymen and also athletes.

There are several legends about him including this popular one:

One dark and stormy night, a child came to Christopher and asked to be carried across the river. Christopher put the child on his shoulders and waded into the wild river. He found the child unusually heavy and had to struggle desperately to reach the other side. When he reached the othe other side the child told him that he was the Christ for and that he had carried the weight of the whole world on his shoulder.

The literal meaning of the name 'Christopher is Christ-bearer.

Some people where St Christophers pendants, or give them to friends and relatives, when they are going on a long journey.

The 25th July is also dedicated to St. James the Great, the patron saint of Spain.