I did danse

[joeyying]

"I did danse"

What tense is it?

Thanks for your reply.

 

[SwissPete]

Danse in French, dance in English.

I did dance: same as I danced.

 

[joeyying]

Sorry for the spelling mistake.

I am writing my French/English essay and I need to know the exact name of this tense.

Thanks for your quick response.

 

[sjheiss]

"I did dance" is in the preterite tense

 

[cycloneviv]

I'm wondering whether we need some context here. For example, the answer would be different (I think) for each of these:

I did dance at the Conservatorium. (Meaning, I studied dance.)
Why are you saying I didn't dance last night? I did dance!

 

[mtmjr]

I think it is most likely that the tense is, as sjheiss said, the preterite tense, also known as the simple past. Here is a wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite

 

[ewie]

I'd call it a 'simple past with an emphatic do'.

 

[cuchuflete]

Non-native students of English (and ESL teachers) might call it the simple past. Most native speakers of AE would call it the past tense.

 

[LV4-26]

I second ewie.
The "normal" past tense would be I danced.
I did dance is the emphatic form of the past.
For the emphatic form, you have to add the auxiliary do.
The auxiliary is inflected while the main verb keeps its root (or neutral) form.

Present simple : I do dance / She does dance, etc....

 

[mtmjr]

The addition of the "do" is found mostly in negatives and interrogatives:

I danced. (affirmative)
I didn't dance. (negative)
Did you dance? (interrogative)

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

I would call "I danced" the simple past, while "I did dance" I would call the past emphatic, although some people call it the simple past emphatic. One needs that word "emphatic" in there, though, because it is obvious that "I danced" (which is the true simple past) and "I did dance" are not identical.