When we are talking about the past, the word 'did' is very important. We can use the 'did' to ask and answer yes or no questions.
| Statement | Martina lost her |
| Question | Did Martina lose her favourite bracelet last week? |
| Answer | Yes, she did. |
Notice that when asking a question with 'did', even about the past, we use the present tense. We will be learning more about asking questions later!
We also use the word 'did' to make negative sentences in the past tense. These sentences are formed using:
Subject + did not +Present Verb
| Subject | did not | Present Verb | |
| I, You, He, She, It, We, You, They | did not | close | the gate properly. |
Remember that you can use the contraction 'didn't' instead of 'did not.'
Here are some sentences that use the word 'did' in the simple past.
Did you vote in the election yet? I did!
She did not get enough sleep last night.
We didn't have enough party hats!
Did he hear a funny joke?
The water didn't stop him from his work!
He didn't want to share his gummy bear.