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Verb Tenses and Irregular Words

Verbs are time-travel words — they change shape to tell when something happens. Get present and past under control, tame the tricky rule-breakers (it's went, not goed), and meet plural rebels like mic

8
lessons
~30 min
to learn
🗣️ Language
subject
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. Verbs Are Doing WordsIdentify the verb in a simple sentence as the action word.A verb is a doing word — it tells you the action in a sentence, like run, jump, eat, or sing. Every sentence needs one. Finding the verb is the first step, because verbs are the words that will change their shape to tell us when the action happened.
  2. Verbs Can Tell TimeTell the difference between an action happening now (present) and one that already happened (past).Verbs are like little time machines. The present tense tells about something happening now (I play). The past tense tells about something that already happened (I played). The name 'tense' just means the time of the verb, and learning to switch between now and before is the heart of this course.
  3. The Magic -ed EndingForm the past tense of regular verbs by adding -ed.Most verbs follow one tidy rule to become the past: just add -ed. Play becomes played, jump becomes jumped, help becomes helped. These well-behaved verbs are called regular verbs, and because the rule almost always works, you can make hundreds of past-tense verbs the very same way.
  4. Meet the Rule-BreakersRecognise that some common verbs are irregular and change form completely in the past instead of adding -ed.Not every verb follows the -ed rule. A small gang of very common verbs are irregular: they change their whole shape in the past. Go becomes went (not 'goed'), eat becomes ate, and see becomes saw. There is no rule for these — you simply learn them by heart, and because we use them so often, they soon become easy.
  5. More Everyday Rule-BreakersMatch more common irregular verbs to their past-tense forms.There are more irregular verbs we use every single day: come/came, take/took, make/made, give/gave. Practising them as pairs — present next to past — is the best way to lock them in. The more you meet these rule-breakers, the more automatic they become.
  6. One and Lots: Making PluralsForm regular plurals of nouns by adding -s (or -es).Nouns play a time-like game too, but with amount instead of time: one becomes many. Most nouns add -s to mean more than one — cat becomes cats, dog becomes dogs. Some that end in certain sounds add -es, like box/boxes. A word for more than one is called a plural, and most plurals follow this tidy rule.
  7. Plural Rule-BreakersRecognise irregular plurals that change form completely instead of adding -s.Just like verbs, plurals have their own gang of rule-breakers. Instead of adding -s, they change shape entirely: one mouse becomes mice, one foot becomes feet, one child becomes children, one tooth becomes teeth, and one person becomes people. There's no rule — these are learned by heart, exactly like the irregular verbs.
  8. Putting It All TogetherChoose the correct past-tense verbs and sort words into regular versus irregular.Now everything comes together. Some words are regular — they follow the tidy rule (add -ed for past verbs, add -s for plurals) — and some are irregular rule-breakers you know by heart. Being able to tell which is which, and to pick the right form in a real sentence, is the whole skill of this course.

Questions this course answers

Which word is the verb in this sentence: 'The bird sings.'

'Sings' is the verb because it's the doing word — the action the bird does. 'Bird' is a naming word (a noun), and 'the' just points to it.

'Yesterday we cooked dinner.' Is this verb in the present or the past?

The word 'yesterday' is a clue, and 'cooked' already happened, so it is the past tense. The present would be 'Today we cook dinner.'

What is the past tense of the regular verb 'jump'?

'Jump' is a regular verb, so you make the past tense by adding -ed: jumped. The same tidy rule works for hundreds of verbs like play, help, and cook.

A friend says, 'Yesterday I goed to the zoo.' What should they say instead?

'Go' is an irregular verb — a rule-breaker. Its past tense is 'went', not 'goed'. Irregular verbs change their whole shape instead of adding -ed, so you learn each one by heart.

What is the past tense of the irregular verb 'take'?

'Take' is a rule-breaker, so it doesn't add -ed. Its past tense is 'took' — as in 'Yesterday I took my bag to school.'

How do you make the plural of 'box' (more than one)?

'Box' ends in an x sound, which is hard to say with just an -s. So we add -es instead: boxes. Try saying 'boxs' and then 'boxes' — the -es makes it much easier to say.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • Regular past tense is formed by adding -ed, and English has a set of common irregular verbs (go/went, eat/ate, see/saw) that change form instead: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb
  • Most English nouns form plurals by adding -s or -es, while a small set of irregular plurals change form (mouse/mice, foot/feet, child/children, tooth/teeth, person/people): https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural

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