#Ep. 12 Enhance Your English with Past Tense Practice

Unlock the secrets of mastering English past tense verbs and elevate your language skills to new heights! We kick off this captivating mini-series of talking about the tenses by unraveling the nuances of the past tense, all while focusing on the straightforward simplicity of regular verbs. Ever struggled to recall those tricky irregular verbs? Fear not, as I'll provide you with a handy list to fortify your understanding and help you sound more fluent. Engage in my interactive "my turn, your turn" practice sessions, and discover why the past tense is essential for sharing stories and recounting experiences with ease.

Ready to take your learning further? Challenge yourself with a diary entry that puts those irregular verbs to the test. Reflect on the power of this exercise and share your thoughts with us—your insights are always valued!

 But that's not all; for book lovers eager to enrich their English through literature, join our English Language Learners Book Club. Dive into extra weekly episodes on Patreon, where we explore classic and modern novels. Our journey through tenses is just beginning, so subscribe and stay engaged as we continue to unfold the mysteries of English grammar.

Chapters

• 0:00 Learning English Past Tense Verbs
• 7:42 Improving English With Past Tense Verbs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Are you trying to learn English but you're getting stuck because you don't understand the difference between the different tenses? Then welcome to Learn English with Natalie. You are in the right place. This is the start of my new mini-series where I'm going to be teaching you about the different tenses of the English language. Today, we are going to be starting off with the past tense. These episodes have been cut down into short, manageable chunks so that you can practice this learning over and over again to help you understand better the past tense. Why do we use this and when do we use this In English?

Speaker 1: 0:41

Discussing the past tense is essential for sharing personal experiences, stories and events that have already happened. They happened in the past. Today, we are focusing on the past tense to help you confidently talk about things you've done and places that you've visited. Understanding the past tense gives you tools to explain and describe experiences. Practice makes perfect, so let's dive in and get comfortable using the past tense. Before we do that, make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss out on my future lessons, where I will be covering more information about the different tenses. Okay, so when should I use the past tense?

Speaker 1: 1:31

You can use the past tense to talk about completed actions in the past, to talk about actions that have happened at a specific time in the past. For example, I visited Paris last year. You can use the past tense to talk about a sequence of events in the past, using the past tense to list events in the order that they happened. For example, I woke up, got dressed and left the house. And you can also use the past tense to talk about past habits and routines, to describe activities that you used to do regularly but you don't anymore. For example, I played soccer or football every Saturday. So now we're going to talk about the simple past tense. The simple past tense is used commonly to describe completed actions or events in the past, and we do that by using regular verbs. For most verbs, we can add ed. These are regular verbs where we can add ed to the base verb to help us in a sentence. For example, walk becomes walked, talk becomes talked. Here are some example past tense sentences.

Speaker 1: 2:59

We're going to do a my turn, your turn approach, so that you can have some time to practice. To do a my turn, your turn approach, so that you can have some time to practice my turn. I walked to the store yesterday. Your turn Perfect. My turn. She finished her homework before dinner your turn her homework before dinner. Your turn Wonderful my turn. They started a new project last week your turn Fantastic. My turn again. We talked on the phone for two hours your turn, excellent. And finally he cleaned his room on Saturday your turn Excellent. Now, what did you notice about all of the verbs used in those sentences? I'm going to read the verbs to you Walked, finished, started, talked, cleaned. Do you notice anything that they have in common? That's right, they all end with ed. They are regular verbs.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Now let's have a look at some irregular verbs. If you know how to use these verbs accurately, you will sound more fluent, and this will help you in professional settings too. Now I spoke a little bit about professional settings last week on my formal versus informal video, so check that out if you missed it. Some verbs do not follow the ED rule, and these are called irregular verbs. Here are some examples go, as in I go to the store becomes went. I went to the store. See becomes saw. I can see the view. I saw the view. Make becomes made. I make a cake. I made a cake. So we can't just add ed to the base verb in these examples. A top tip for learning English this week is to memorize these common irregular verbs, as they do not follow regular patterns, and I've got a little surprise for you if you stick around until the end. Here are some irregular verb sentences.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Again, we're going to do a my turn. Your turn approach. My turn I went to the beach last weekend. Your turn, fantastic. My turn she saw her friends at the park. Your turn, wonderful. My turn they made a cake for the party. Your turn, fantastic. We ate dinner at a new restaurant. Your turn, brilliant. And finally, my turn. He took a taxi to the airport. Your turn, fantastic. The irregular verbs that are used in those sentences were went, saw, made ate and took notice how we cannot add ed to the end of those base verbs. Like I said earlier, go. The present tense for went is go and the past tense is went. The present tense for see is see and the past tense is saw. We don't say I seed the view, we say I saw the view.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Now here's my little surprise for you this week. To make life a little bit easier for you, I have created a list of irregular past tense verbs so that you can practice them at home in your own leisure time. You can download this wait for it absolutely free. Okay, it's on my new website and the link is posted in the show notes, so take a little look at that and you can download that entire list of irregular verbs for free for you to practice for using the past tense forms of irregular verbs. And here's your activity for this week.

Speaker 1: 7:42

I want you to write a diary entry this week using past tense verbs to reflect upon your day. Try to challenge yourself by using some irregular past tense verbs in your diary entry. I really hope that you found this valuable and useful and if you did, please let me know in the comments below. You can reach me on TikTok and YouTube and Patreon at Learn English with Natalie. And talking about Patreon, if you are interested in taking your learning further, you might be interested in joining my English Language Learners Book Club, but it's only for the book nerds, okay. So if you love reading as much as I do and you want to learn English through stories, then you can join my book club, where I upload an extra four episodes every single week where we dive into some classic and modern English novels. So please check that out. I hope to see you there and thank you again for joining me. I hope to see you again next week for the next installment of this new mini series on tenses. See you then.