UNIVERSIDAD RURAL DE GUATEMALA ADMINISTRACIÓN

Nelson Joel López Orozco Sección ¨A¨

16 000 1226
INGLES 4
4to. Semestre

TEXTO PARALELO 1

DEFINITION OF THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE

The simple past tense, sometimes called the preterite, is used to talk about a completed action in a time before
now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past
or the distant past and action duration is not important.

EXAMPLES

John Cabot sailed to America in 1498.

My father died last year.

He lived in Fiji in 1976.

We crossed the Channel yesterday.

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past
time expressions

 frequency: often, sometimes, always

I sometimes walked home at lunchtime.
I often brought my lunch to school.
 a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
We saw a good film last week.
Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
She finished her work atseven o'clock
I went to the theatre last night
 an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago People lived in caves a long time
ago.
 She played the piano when she was a child.

Note: the word ago is a useful way of expressing the distance into the past. It is placed after the period of
time: a week ago, three years ago, a minute ago.

Be Careful: The simple past in English may look like a tense in your own language, but the meaning may be
different.
 NOTES ON AFFIRMATIVE, NEGATIVE, & INTERROGATIVE FORMS

AFFIRMATIVE
The affirmative of the simple past tense is simple.

 I was in Japan last year

 She had a headache yesterday.
 We did our homework last night.

NEGATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE

For the negative and interrogative simple past form of "do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "do", e.g.
We didn't do our homework last night.
The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed using the auxiliary "do", but sometimes by simply
adding not or the contraction "n't".

The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses the auxiliary "do".

EXAMPLES
They weren't in Rio last summer.
We didn't have any money.
We didn't have time to visit the Eiffel Tower.
We didn't do our exercises this morning.
Were they in Iceland last January?
Did you have a bicycle when you were young?
Did you do much climbing in Switzerland?
Note: For the negative and interrogative form of all verbs in the simple past, always use the auxiliary 'did''.

SIMPLE PAST, IRREGULAR VERBS

Some verbs are irregular in the simple past. Here are the most common ones.

TO GO

 He went to a club last night.

 Did he go to the cinema last night?
 He didn't go to bed early last night.

TO GIVE

 We gave her a doll for her birthday.

 They didn't give John their new address.
 Did Barry give you my passport?
 TO COME

 My parents came to visit me last July.

 We didn't come because it was raining.
 Did he come to your party last week?

What is an Adjective?
Adjectives are words that describe or modify other words, making your writing and speaking much more
specific, and a whole lot more interesting. Words like small, blue, and sharp are descriptive, and they are all
examples of adjectives. Because adjectives are used to identify or quantify individual people and unique things,
they are usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify. Some sentences contain multiple
adjectives.

Adjective Examples
In the following examples, the highlighted words are adjectives:

1. They live in a big, beautiful

2. Since it’s a hot day, Lisa is wearing a sleeveless
3. The mountaintops are covered in sparkling
4. On her birthday, Brenda received an antique vase filled with fragrant

Types of Adjectives
Remember that adjectives can modify as well as describe other words, and you’ll find it much easier to identify
different types of adjectives when you see them.

Articles

There are only three articles, and all of them are adjectives: a, an, and the. Because they are used to discuss
non-specific things and people, a and an are called indefinite articles. For example:

 I’d like a
 Let’s go on an
Neither one of these sentences names a specific banana or a certain adventure. Without more clarification, any
banana or adventure will do.

The word the is called the definite article. It’s the only definite article, and it is used to indicate very specific
people or things:

 Please give me a banana. I’d like the one with the green stem.
 Let’s go on an adventure. The Grand Canyon mule ride sounds perfect!
 Possessive Adjectives

As the name indicates, possessive adjectives are used to indicate possession. They are:

 My
 Your
 His
 Her
 Its
 Our
 Their
Possessive adjectives also function as possessive pronouns.

Demonstrative Adjectives

Like the article the, demonstrative adjectives are used to indicate or demonstrate specific people, animals, or
things. These, those, this and that are demonstrative adjectives.

 These books belong on that

 This movie is my favorite.
 Please put those cookies on the blue plate.

Coordinate Adjectives

Coordinate adjectives are separated with commas or the word and, and appear one after another to modify the
same noun. The adjectives in the phrase bright, sunny day and long and dark night are coordinate adjectives. In
phrases with more than two coordinate adjectives, the word and always appears before the last one; for
example: The sign had big, bold, and bright letters.
Be careful, because some adjectives that appear in a series are not coordinate. In the phrase green delivery
truck, the words green and delivery are not separated by a comma because green modifies the phrase delivery
truck. To eliminate confusion when determining whether a pair or group of adjectives is coordinate, just insert
the word and between them. If and works, then the adjectives are coordinate and need to be separated with a
comma.

Numbers Adjectives

When they’re used in sentences, numbers are almost always adjectives. You can tell that a number is an
adjective when it answers the question “How many?”

 The stagecoach was pulled by a team of six

 He ate 23 hotdogs during the contest, and was sick afterwards.
 Interrogative Adjectives

There are three interrogative adjectives: which, what, and whose. Like all other types of adjectives,
interrogative adjectives modify nouns. As you probably know, all three of these words are used to ask
questions.

 Which option sounds best to you?

 What time should we go?
 Whose socks are those?

Indefinite Adjectives

Like the articles a and an, indefinite adjectives are used to discuss non-specific things. You might recognize
them, since they’re formed from indefinite pronouns. The most common indefinite adjectives are any, many, no,
several, and few.

 Do we have any peanut butter?

 Grandfather has been retired for many
 There are no bananas in the fruit bowl.
 I usually read the first few pages of a book before I buy it.
 We looked at several cars before deciding on the best one for our family.

Attributive Adjectives

Attributive adjectives talk about specific traits, qualities, or features – in other words, they are used to discuss
attributes. There are different kinds of attributive adjectives:

 Observation adjectives such as real, perfect, best, interesting, beautiful or cheapest can indicate value or talk
about subjective measures.
 Size and shape adjectives talk about measurable, objective qualities including specific physical properties.
Some examples include small, large, square, round, poor, wealthy, slow and
 Age adjectives denote specific ages in numbers, as well as general ages. Examples are old, young, new, five-
year-old, and
 Color adjectives are exactly what they sound like – they’re adjectives that indicate color. Examples
include pink, yellow, blue, and
 Origin adjectives indicate the source of the noun, whether it’s a person, place, animal or thing. Examples
include American, Canadian, Mexican, French.
 Material adjectives denote what something is made of. Some examples include cotton, gold, wool, and
 Qualifier adjectives are often regarded as part of a noun. They make nouns more specific; examples
include log cabin, luxury car, and pillow cover.
 ANTONYMS

An antonym is a word that is the opposite meaning of another. It comes from the Greek words “anti” for
opposite and “onym” for name. Since language is complex, people may at times, disagree on what words are
truly opposite in meaning to other words.
Synonyms and Antonyms
A synonym is a word that means the same, or almost the same, as another word. Synonyms and
antonyms are used by teachers, students, writers, editors, poets, and songwriters.

For Example:
Sometimes, an antonym can be easily made by adding a prefix.
Examples of antonyms that were made by adding the prefix “un” are:
 Likely and unlikely
 Able and unable
 Fortunate and unfortunate
 Forgiving and unforgiving
By adding the prefix “non” you can make these pairs:
 Entity and nonentity
 Conformist and nonconformist
 Payment and nonpayment
 Combatant and noncombatant
Lastly, adding the prefix “in” can make the following pairs:
 Tolerant and intolerant
 Decent and indecent
 Discreet and indiscreet
 Excusable and inexcusable

PAST TIME EXPRESSIONS

The expressions of time in the past, help us to structure our best prayers, as they point to the time in which some
action happened. These expressions are common when we say them - Yesterday I studied English, - Three
hours ago I was in the super, A month ago I went to Tajin; Etc.
Using these expressions can give a greater context to our idea. Let's check the following table.
Table 1. Expressions of time in common past.
Last Ago Yesterday
Last night 10 minutes ago Yesterday
Last Sunday An hour ago Yesterday morning
Last weekend Three days ago Yesterday afternoon
Last week A week ago Yesterday evening
Last month A month ago The day before yesterday
Last year A year ago, two years ago…
In (To indicate a month in the specific year) In 1990.

These expressions can be placed at the beginning and end of my sentence, for example:
Yesterday, I was at the bank.
I left university three years ago.
Three days ago we were in Peru.
I saw it last week.
In 2002 he was in Alaska

If not, when you use your expression of time at the beginning of your sentence, use a comma after it.

Adjectives to Describe a Person

People vary in terms of their physical appearance and personalities, and the words that are used to
describe them are just as varied. Some words are better suited to describing the physical appearance of
someone, some are best used to describe the person’s style, and others are ideal for describing the person’s
character traits. It is important to have these words in your written and spoken vocabulary because you may, at
some point in your life, face a situation that requires you to describe someone.

Describing People – A Few Examples

Use with verb Be (am, is, are):

Height Weight/Physique

I am short. I am thin.

She is average height. or She is medium height. She is average weight.

They are tall. They are heavy.

He is muscular.

My daughter is three feet two inches.

My husband is six feet.

Personality
She is serious. He is silly.

She is a serious person. He is a silly person.

She is hard-working. He is lazy

She is a hard-working person. He is a lazy person.

She is kind. He is unkind.

She is nice. He is mean.

She is quiet. He is loud.

She is friendly. He is shy.

She is happy. He is unhappy.

They are generous. We are stingy.

They are talkative. We are quiet.

They are helpful. We aren’t helpful.

They are easy-going. We aren’t easy-going.

Use with verb Have (has, have) OR Be (am, is, are):

Eyes
I have green eyes. or My eyes are green.

He has brown eyes. or His eyes are brown.

She has blue eyes. or Her eyes are blue.

They have dark brown eyes. or Their eyes are dark brown.

Hair
I have short, black, straight hair. or My hair is short, black, and straight.

He has medium-length, brown, wavy hair. or His hair is medium-length, brown, and wavy.

She has long, blond, curly hair. or Her hair is long, blond, and curly.

They have no hair. or They are bald.