Simple Past vs. Present Perfect When do we use the simple past, and when do we use the present perfect? Simple Past Photo by Leeloo Thefirst on Pexels.com We use the simple past to talk about things that happened in the past and were completed in a time period that is finished. In these Examples, yesterday, last week, last month, last year, and two days ago are all time periods that are completed. Janet played tennis yesterday. Jan wrote her essay last week. They passed the TOEFL test last month. I went to New York last year.…