Question

What is the difference between simple past and past participle?

Answer 1

Hint: Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future.

Complete answer:
Tenses is a verb based method which tells us the time of the action. It can be past, present or future. Other than these three tenses there are additional tenses which tell us whether an action is continuous or not or whether the action is complete or not.

Present Simple	Past Simple	Future Simple
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	Future Continuous
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	Future Perfect
Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	Future Perfect Continuous

Thus, simple past is a tense which indicates that an action has already been done. For e.g. He ate the chocolate.
Past participle on the other hand, is not a tense at all. It is the third form of a verb. The third form of the verb, i.e. the past participle form of the verb is used to create sentences in the perfect tense.

For e.g.
- He ate the chocolate is a sentence is simple past tense and ate is the 1st form of the verb ‘eat’.
- He had eaten the chocolate is a sentence in the past perfect tense and eaten is the 3rd form (past participle) of the verb ‘eat’.

Note:
- The past participle form is not only used for sentences in the past tense.
- This form is also used in writing sentences in present perfect tense and in future perfect tense also.
For e.g.
- He has eaten the chocolate – present perfect tense.
- He will have eaten the chocolate – future perfect tense.
- Both these examples use the same past participle form of the verb ‘eat’.