Simple Past Tense

The simple past is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. Duration is not important. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past.

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions

• frequency: often, sometimes, always
  I sometimes walked home at lunchtime.
  I often brought my lunch to school.
• a definite point in time: last week, when I was a child, yesterday, six weeks ago
  We saw a good film last week.
  Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
  She finished her work atseven o'clock
  I went to the theatre last night
• an indefinite point in time: the other day, ages ago, a long time ago People lived in caves a long time ago.
  She played the piano when she was a child.