Past simple ( I did )

Study this example:

French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, in Dole, located in the Jura region of France. He grew up in the town of Arbois and his father, Jean-Joseph Pasteur, was a tanner and a sergeant major decorated with the Legion of Honour during the Napoleonic Wars. An average student, Pasteur was skilled at drawing and painting. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (1840), Bachelor of Science degree (1842) and a doctorate (1847) at the École Normale in Paris.In 1848, he became a professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, where he met Marie Laurent, the daughter of the university’s rector. They wed on May 29, 1849, and had five children, though only two survived childhood.

grew up/was/earned/became/met/wed/had/survived are all past simple
Very often the past simple ends in –ed (regular verbs):

Mark worked in a bank from 2008 to 2012.

What happened? The phone rang.

Yesterday it rained all morning.It stopped at 5:00 pm.

What did you do yesterday morning?

We enjoyed the party last night.We talked to a lot of people.

The party finished at 3:00 am.
I work in a private clinic now. Before that I worked in a hospital.

We invited them to our party, but they decided not to come.

It didn’t rain while we were on holiday.

The police stopped me on my way home last night.

Susanne passed her exam because she studied very hard.

But many verbs are irregular. The past simple does not end in –ed.

Here are some important irregular werbs :
begin(began), bring(brought), break(broke), build(built), buy(bought), catch(caught), come(came),  do(did),  drink(drank), eat(ate), fall(fell), find(found), fly(flew),  forget(forgot),  get(got) give(gave),  go(went), have(had)

hear(heard), know(knew), leave(left), lose(lost), make(made), meet(met), pay(paid), put(put), read(red), ring(rang), say(said), see(saw), sell(sold), sit(sat), sleep(slept), speak(spoke), stand(stood), take(took), tell(told), think(thought), win(won), wright(wrote)  

Exemples :

We saw Mark in town a few weeks ago.

I usually get up early but this morning I got up at 11:30
Sue went to the cinema three times last week.
It was cold, so I shut the window.

Last monday Susanne flew from Paris to Tokyo.

Yesterday I went to work by car.

Lisa came into the room, took of his coat and sat down.
For a list of irregular verbs, see Appendix………
C: In questions and negatives we use did/didn’t + infinitive (enjoy/see/go etc.):
A: Did you go out last night?
B: Yes, I went to the cinema, but I didn’t enjoy the film much.
When did Mr Carter die? ‘About ten years ago’.
They didn’t invite us to the party, so we didn’t go.

Did you watch the film on television last night?

Did you have time to do the shopping? No I didn’t.
What did you do at the weekend? I didn’t do anything.
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?

Exercice on text:

The boy went out. They had eaten with no light on the table and the old man took off his trousers and went to bed in the dark. He rolled his trousers up to make a pillow, putting the newspaper inside them. He rolled himself in the blanket and slept on the other old newspapers that covered the springs of the bed. He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brownmountains. He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats [24] come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze brought at morning.
Usually when he smelled the land breeze he woke up and dressed to go and wake the boy. But tonight the smell of the land breeze came very early and he knew it was too early in his dream and went on dreaming to see the white peaks of the Islands rising from the sea and then he dreamed ofthe different harbours and roadsteads of the Canary Islands.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled
his trousers and put them on. He urinated outside the shack and then went up the road to wake the boy. He was shivering with the morning cold. But he knew he would shiver himself warm and that soon he would be rowing.
The door of the house where the boy lived was unlocked and he opened it and walked in quietly