I need... some help with Past Tense.

[ahoteinrun]

Umm... yeah.
So I can write things, and i'm not a bad writer when it comes to stories, or personal type essays... but i'm a bit out of my league.
I need to write a history paper.
And it has to be written in past tense.

Present, past and first person type tenses... have always been a boggle in my mind. I'm not exactly sure what i'm using when i'm using them.
And i'm wondering if the ever smart people here on PPT *worships* can please explain to me what on earth past tense is?

Please... I need help...

[robot]

Past tense : He ate the apple.
Present tense : He is eating the apple.
First person : I am eating the apple./I ate the apple.

I'm not sure if that helps. If you want an actual indepth description, I can do that as well.

[Ammer]

To find out what you're using is simple. For instance, you were writing in the Present Tense.

Past Tense is is an absolute tense that refers to a time before the moment of utterance/pauses/long breaks. You use it when you explain things which have already occured.

For example, you don't say,

Past in Present: "Mom! Look what I am did!"

Present: "Mom! Look what I am doing!"

Another example related to your history would be,

Past: "Benjamin Franklin was a very intelligent man,"

The verbs highlighted are in Past Tense.

---

I can't really help you more with this because I don't know exactly where you are confused.

[ahoteinrun]

Allright. I think i've got it. (present tense)

Mmm hmm. Thankyou. I should know that. But it's just... one of those things that seems to be applied with liberal oil to my brain... it just slides off.

[Starchaser]

Just as a note, they fall into two seperate categories:
Past/Present/Future Tense
Past - Things that have happened
Present - Things currently happening
Future - Things that are going to happen
and First/Second/Third Person.
First: Uses 'I'
Second: Uses 'you', (barely ever comes up so don't worry about it)
Third: Uses 'he, she, it, etc.'
You can mix and match the two as you wish.

Past 1st:
I ate dinner.
Present 2nd:
You are eating dinner.
Future 3rd:
She will eat dinner.

Hope that helped and didn't confuse you more - I have a tendency to do that.

[Alex]

Basically what the others said. Though I do like Starchaser's explanation, as it includes the first, second, and third person as well. (I did a writing assignment in the second person, my teacher was amazed I was able to pull it off).

Be thankful you don't need to know the French tenses. I have to know two different past tenses, and two future tenses. I still don't know which is which.

[Igg]

Pfft, what's so hard about writing an assignment in the 2nd person?

(No, really).

[Alex]

Apparently it's hard to pull off.

Or something. I don't listen to my English teacher, she sucks.

[Igg]

Hard for you Alex.
Not hard for normal people.

[Qanda]

Tenses will come naturally to you if you read a lot.

For a history assignment:

In 19XX, Hitler invaded France and attacked blah blah (my history sucks )...... He commited suicide in an underground bunker after his troops lost.

I don't see what is so difficult about it... it's just like recounting something that has already happened.

[Igg]

Tenses will come naturally to you if you read a lot.

For a history assignment:

In 19XX, Hitler invaded France and attacked blah blah (my history sucks )...... He commited suicide in an underground bunker after his troops lost.

I don't see what is so difficult about it... it's just like recounting something that has already happened.

Alledgedly. Ahem.

[ahoteinrun]

Tenses will come naturally to you if you read a lot.

I'm an incredibly fast reader. Not... that I look at a page, and I read it all at once, but we'll put it this way. I got through the fifth harry potter in three hours the first go round. And that was taking it slow.

I've got it now. I just needed a memory boost.
I sold my english writing books... and when I asked my room mate about it she kinda stared blankly at me (which I should expect, knowing her).

I don't see what is so difficult about it... it's just like recounting something that has already happened.

I'm going to use this as an excuse, because it's true. I'm a fine arts student, the expectations of how we write are fairly low. Except when we take a class outside of our course. Such as Classics. And i'm more then just a little intimidated by writing history papers. I've written demi history papers before back in High School... and I never did well on them (C+ B- sorta thing). And I really really really really wanna do well in this course. So... I thought it'd be best to find out now, rather then on Novemeber 9th start freaking out because the papers due the next day and I dont' know what Past tense is.

*nods*

But thankyou for your help everyone.

[DM was on fire!]

I always remember my tenses by the words. Like...

PAST: Yesterday, I made a set
PRESENT: I am making a set
FUTURE: I will have to make a set for PPTTG.

Made goes into making by adding the "K" because the future nears in the present. I just made that up.