English-Italian translations for past tense

• passato
  I tempi sono andati avanti e dobbiamo quindi usare il passato. Time has moved on, so it needs to be put in the past tense.
  Alla lettera i) si devono sostituire le parole must endorse con did endorse, ovvero usare il passato. In item i) the words must endorse are changed to did endorse (past tense).
  Volendo sottolineare un aspetto della relazione dell’onorevole Dimitrakopoulos, direi che essa guarda al futuro, perché il futuro non può essere costruito solo guardando al passato. If I had to emphasise one aspect of Mr Dimitrakopoulos’s report, it would be that it looks to the future, because the future cannot be built solely by talking in the past tense.
• passato prossimo

Definition of past tense

• A grammatical form that refers to an event, transaction, occurrence, or object that happened , or existed, at some time before now (the applicable reference time
• A grammatical form that is used in a conditional expression to refer to an event, transaction, occurrence, or object that is hypothetical and often counterfactual

Examples

• Example: "I saw the #5 bus across the street. I didn’t make it."
• Example: "If I spoke Japanese I would be happy to visit Japan."

Related words

• simple past tense
• past historic tense
• past imperfect tense