Regular and Irregular Verbs

There are two kinds of verbs:

                         regular verbs

                         irregular verbs

Most verbs are regular verbs. With a regular verb, you can add ed to the ending to make the past tense of the verb. When you want to use the past participle of a regular verb, you can use it with one of the helping words like have, has or had.

Here are the three main parts of the regular verb to sneeze.

                         Present                    : sneeze

                         Past                         : sneezed

                         Past participle          : sneezed

To form the past tense of a regular verb ending with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), add a d to the word. To form the present/past perfect tense, add a d plus a helping verb (have, had, or has).

For example, the verb share ends with the vowel e.

share                                         = present tense

shared (share + d)                   = past tense

had shared (had + share + d)  = past perfect tense (have is the helping verb)

If the regular verb ends with a consonant, add ed for the past tense. Add ed plus a helping verb for the present/past perfect tense.

For example, the verb pour ends with the consonant r.

Pour                                                    = present tense

poured (pour + ed)                            = past tense

have poured (have + pour + ed)       = present perfect tense

Now let’s look at the irregular verb to see.

The irregular verb see has three principal parts: see, saw, seen.

I see the stars              = present tense

I saw the stars             = past tense

I have seen the stars    = present perfect tense

Irregular verbs change to match the other words surrounding them in a sentence. Often you can tell an irregular verb by how it sounds in a sentence.

                         I writted a book report last week.

You wouldn’t use this bad grammar to tell about a book report you wrote last week. Instead you would write:

                         I wrote a book report last week.