Past tense indicates completed action from "summary" of Basic English Grammar For Dummies - UK by Geraldine Woods
When you use the past tense, you're talking about something that already happened. The past tense tells your reader or listener that the action is finished. You can sit back and relax because it's all done. When you say, "I watched the movie," you're telling your audience that you've already seen the film. The action is complete. No need to worry about what's going to happen next. The past tense wraps everything up neatly. The past tense is like a period at the end of a sentence - it signals that the action is over. You can think of it as the final curtain falling on a play. The actors take their bows, the audience applauds, and everyone goes home. When you use the past tense, you're hitting the "stop" button on the action. It's a way of closing the door on what happened. In English, the past tense is easy to spot because it usually involves adding "-ed" to the end of the verb. For example, "I walked to the store," "She talked to her friend," and "They played soccer." These sentences all use the past tense to show that the action is finished. The "-ed" ending is a signal to your reader or listener that the event is in the past. But not all past tense verbs end in "-ed." Some verbs are irregular and have different forms in the past tense. For example, "go" becomes "went," "eat" becomes "ate," and "see" becomes "saw." These irregular verbs follow their own rules, so you need to memorize them. When you use irregular verbs in the past tense, you're still signaling that the action is completed. So, when you use the past tense in English, you're telling your audience that the action is finished and done with. It's like tying a bow on a present - you're wrapping up the event and making it clear that it's in the past. Whether you're adding "-ed" to a regular verb or using an irregular form, the past tense indicates that the action is complete. You can sit back, relax, and enjoy the show - it's all over.
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