Ready for the simple past? No stress, it’s quite straightforward (and arguably easier than the present/future tense). You take the verb root, and add a suffix (depending on who the subject of the sentence is).
That’s it! Here’s a conjugation table, using the verbs መብላት/mäblat (eat) and መኖር/mänor (live), so the roots are በላ/bäla and ኖር/nor.
እኔ/ïne/I _____ሁ/_____ኩ _____hu/_____ku በላሁ/bälahu ኖርኩ/norku | እኛ/ïña/we _____ን/_____n በላን/bälan ኖርን/norn | |
አንተ/antä/you _____ህ/_____ክ _____h/_____k በላህ/bälah ኖርክ/nork | አንቺ/anči/you _____ሽ/_____š በላሽ/bälaš ኖርሽ/norš | እናንተ/ïnantä/ya’ll _____አችሁ/_____ačhu በላችሁ/bälačhu ኖራችሁ/noračhu |
እሱ/ïsu/he _____አ/_____ä በላ/bäla ኖረ/norä | እሷ/ïswa/she _____አች/_____äč በላች/bälač ኖረች/noräč | እነሱ/ïnäsu/they _____ኡ/_____u በሉ/bälu ኖሩ/noru |
Exercise: Complete the following table.
ENGLISH | INFINITIVE | ROOT | ÏNE/እኔ: PAST |
to sleep | ተኛ täña | ||
to give permission | ፈቀደሁ fäk’ädähu | ||
to change | መቀየር mäk’äyär | ||
to adapt | መለመድ mälämäd | ||
to buy | ገዛ gäza | ||
to find | መግኘት mägñät | ||
to arrive | ደረሰ däräsä |
Once you’ve got the past simple down in the positive, changing it to the negative is also quite easy.
[…] you know the positive version of the simple past tense, it is very easy to change past tense verbs into the negative: just add “al-/አል-” and […]
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[…] the formula, followed by a table of examples.past tense relative clause = yä + verb (in simple past) + […]
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