Talking about the past (regular and irregular verbs)

Regular verbs
With most verbs, the past tense is formed by adding –ed:

called

liked

wanted

worked

Irregular verbs
But there are a lot of irregular past tense forms in English. 

We use the past tense to talk about:

• something that happened once in the past:

I met my wife in 1991.
We went to Spain for our holidays.
They got home very late last night.

• something that happened several times in the past:

When I was a boy, I walked a kilometer to school every day.
We swam a lot while we were on holiday.
They always enjoyed visiting their friends.

• something that was true for some time in the past:

I lived in Angola for 3 years.
He enjoyed being a student.
She played a lot of tennis when she was younger.

• we often use expressions with ago, last..., yesterday with the past simple:

I met my wife a long time ago.
I visited my parents yesterday 
last week I went to Foz do Arelho

Exercises:

Past Tense - Regular Verbs
Past Tense - Irregular Verbs - 1
Past Tense - Irregular Verbs - 2

Past simple British Council