Stories and the Past
Primary 5 · English
Stories and the Past
Lesson 1 of 3
14 min
Let's begin
On Monday morning, the teacher asks the class about umuganda. Byiringiro stands up proudly.
"I carry stones. I dig the drain. I go home at eleven o'clock."
Everybody understands him. But look again at those three verbs: carry, dig, go. They all sound like something happening right now, this minute. And umuganda was on Saturday. It is over. It is finished.
English has a special shape for things that are finished. It is called the past simple, and by the end of this lesson it will belong to you.
Read these two sentences slowly.
Today: Keza walks to school.
Yesterday: Keza walked to school.
Something small happened at the end of the verb. It grew a tail: walk → walked.
That little -ed is English quietly telling you: this is done, this is behind us. It is the past simple.
Most verbs do exactly this. They are called regular verbs, because they follow the rule without complaining:
1. The verb already ends in e. Look at like. It already has its e waiting there, so you only need to add d.
like → liked. Also: live → lived, dance → danced, use → used, close → closed.
2. The verb ends in a consonant + y. Look at carry. Before the y there is an r, a consonant. So the y turns into an i, and then -ed joins on.
carry → carried. Also: study → studied, cry → cried, try → tried, hurry → hurried.
But be careful. In play, the letter before the y is a, a vowel. The y is safe. So it is simply play → played, stay → stayed, enjoy → enjoyed.
3. The verb ends in one short vowel + one consonant. Look at stop: s-t-o-p. One short vowel (o), one consonant after it (p). That last consonant doubles.
stop → stopped. Also: plan → planned, drop → dropped, beg → begged, clap → clapped.
Now try the rule on go. Add -ed and you get "goed". Say it out loud. It is not English, and you already knew that before anybody told you.
The real past of go is went.
Yesterday Keza went to school. Yesterday Gatete ate three chapatis. Last week I saw Lake Kivu for the first time.
These are the irregular verbs. They do not take -ed. They change shape completely, and there is no rule that will save you. The strange thing is this: they are the verbs you use most often every single day. English's oldest, hardest-working verbs are the wild ones.
So you learn them the way you learn a friend's name — by meeting them again and again. Here are the ones you truly need:
| Now | Past simple | Now | Past simple |
|---|---|---|---|
| go | went | say | said |
| eat | ate | tell | told |
| see | saw | think | thought |
| come | came | buy | bought |
| take | took | bring | brought |
| give | gave | teach | taught |
| get | got | catch | caught |
| make | made | find | found |
| do | did | run | ran |
| have | had | drink | drank |
| write | wrote | sing | sang |
| sit | sat | sleep | slept |
| leave | left | win | won |
And three lazy ones that do not change at all: put → put, cut → cut, hit → hit. You can only tell from the rest of the sentence: Yesterday she put the basket down.
Start with something true:
Mugisha bought a mandazi.
Now say the opposite:
Mugisha did not buy a mandazi. (Or, more naturally: Mugisha didn't buy a mandazi.)
Look very carefully at what happened to the verb. Bought went back to buy! Why would it do that?
Because did not is already sitting in the past. The word did is the past of do. So the sentence has already said "this is the past" — once is enough. Two past words in one sentence would be like wearing two hats on one head. So the main verb takes its hat off and stands there plain and simple.
Regular verbs do the same thing. She washed the plates → She didn't wash the plates. The -ed comes straight off.
Start with something true again:
Umutoni finished her homework.
Now turn it into a question:
Did Umutoni finish her homework?
Two things moved. Did jumped to the very front of the sentence, and finished took its hat off and became finish — for exactly the same reason as before.
Short answers are easy: Yes, she did. / No, she didn't.
Question words go in front of did:
Today: I am tired. Yesterday: I was tired.
Today: The children are tired. Yesterday: The children were tired.
So: I, he, she, it → was. You, we, they (more than one) → were.
These two make their own negatives and their own questions. They never call did for help:
Tip
One sentence, one past
The -ed (or the irregular form) shows the past — but only in a positive sentence. The moment you make a negative or a question, did takes over that job, and the main verb goes back to its plain form.
The only two verbs that ignore all of this are was and were. They carry their own past everywhere they go.
Do each one on paper first. Then check below — and read the reason, not just the answer.
Now go back to Byiringiro at the start of the lesson and fix his three sentences. He should have said: "I carried stones. I dug the drain. I went home at eleven o'clock." (Yes — dig is irregular too: dig → dug.)
What you learned today
Quick check
Match each verb to its past simple.
Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
