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The regular way to talk about finished actions

One ending turns a regular verb into the past - when to use it, and how the spelling shifts along the way.

English, never translated

Last night I watched a film and then studied for two hours.

Explanation

Regular verbs mark a finished past action with a single ending, the -ed form, and the same form works for every subject. Use it when the action is over and the time is stated or clear from context - yesterday, last week, in 2019. The spelling adjusts in two common cases: a short verb ending in one vowel plus one consonant doubles that consonant, and a verb ending in a consonant plus the letter y changes the y to i before the ending.

More examples
We visited my grandparents last weekend. The match finished at ten o'clock. She stopped the car and opened the door. I studied French for three years at school.
Watch out

In negatives and questions, the past marking moves onto the helper verb, so the main verb goes back to its base form - keeping the past ending on both is the classic error at this level. Watch the spelling traps too: the doubling and the letter change happen only in their exact cases, not everywhere.

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