VERBage PART 01

Studies have shown that more than half of the errors made in the English language involve the use of verbs.

Verbs come in three forms: the present tense; the past tense and the past participle.

They express an action or a state of being that is either happening now, happened in the past or is combined with an auxiliary verb such as have, has or had and expresses a completed action.

In the sentence: I drive; the action (drive) occurs at the present time.

In the sentence: I drove; the action occurred in the past.

Finally, in the sentence: I have driven every day this week; driven is the past participle and expresses an action that is completed.

How one forms sentences with verbs is determined by whether the verb is a regular verb or an irregular verb.

With regard to verbs, "regular" means "normal" or "usual."

With regular verbs, the tenses are formed in the regular way. For instance one normally expresses the past tense by adding "ed" to the verb. That's the regular way to turn a present tense verb into a past tense verb.

Not only that, but the Past Participle of the verb is formed in the same way as the Past Tense.

So, the regular verb, call is turned into the Past Tense by adding "ed." Therefore, the Past Tense of call is called.

Because call is a regular verb, the Past Participle is also formed by adding "ed."

These can form sentences as follows: I call. That's the Present Tense. I called. That's the Past Tense. I have called. That's the Past Participle.

Irregular verbs are called irregular because they do not form their Past Tense and their Past Participle in the regular way.

There are more regular verbs than there are irregular verbs, so it is easier to learn the irregular verbs and assume all others to be regular.

The following list of verbs deals with some common irregular verbs. They are listed in the order of Present Tense; Past Tense and then the Past Participle.

sing - sang - sung
drive - drove - driven
begin - began - begun
go - went - gone (This one is strange because each one is totally different from the other.)
burst- burst - burst (This one is strange because all three are the same.)

Next time we will examine how to use the principle parts of regular and irregular verbs.