Level: beginner
Most verbs have a past tense and past participle with –ed:
worked
played
listened
But many of the most frequent verbs are irregular:
Base form | Past tense | Past participle |
---|---|---|
be | was/were | been |
begin | began | begun |
break | broke | broken |
bring | brought | brought |
buy | bought | bought |
build | built | built |
choose | chose | chosen |
come | came | come |
cost | cost | cost |
cut | cut | cut |
do | did | done |
draw | drew | drawn |
drive | drove | driven |
eat | ate | eaten |
feel | felt | felt |
find | found | found |
get | got | got |
give | gave | given |
go | went | gone |
have | had | had |
hear | heard | heard |
hold | held | held |
keep | kept | kept |
know | knew | known |
leave | left | left |
lead | led | led |
let | let | let |
lie | lay | lain |
lose | lost | lost |
make | made | made |
mean | meant | meant |
meet | met | met |
pay | paid | paid |
put | put | put |
run | ran | run |
say | said | said |
see | saw | seen |
sell | sold | sold |
send | sent | sent |
set | set | set |
sit | sat | sat |
speak | spoke | spoken |
spend | spent | spent |
stand | stood | stood |
take | took | taken |
teach | taught | taught |
tell | told | told |
think | thought | thought |
understand | understood | understood |
wear | wore | worn |
win | won | won |
write | wrote | written |
- Irregular verbs
Average
Hello Teachers!
It's so hard for me to solve this exercise. Could you explain what I'm missing, please? I'm pretty sure it's not a phrasal verb and I don't know how to use 'put' here. I think these exercises are called transformations or sth like that:
"The noise outside the classroom made it difficult for me to finish my work.
PUT
The noise outside the classroom ____ my work. "
Thanks in advance!!!!
Hi cuntur,
There is a phrasal verb "put somebody off (something)", which means to distract somebody or make them lose interest, attention or concentration in the thing that they are doing. For example:
That's probably the verb you need here!
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello
I do not know if this is the right session, but I would ask you about the verbs:
"to lend" and "to borrow"
Although "to lend" refers to giving something to someone, and "to borrow" to taking and using something from others, I struggle to put this concept into practice.
For instance, now it is easy for me to remember:
"Can you lend me your umbrella?" or "Can I borrow your umbrella?"
If you ask me the difference in a few hours, I will not be sure which one is the correct form.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for help.
Hi User_1,
I would suggest that as part of your vocabulary learning, you try to use the words in meaningful conversations, writing or speaking. For example, try to use the words when you are writing your diary, talking to someone, or taking an English class. When you use the new words, it forces you to think about the words more, associate them with other words, and put them into a meaningful context. All of these things can be cues for your memory.
Also, difficulty may appear because you are learning "lend" and "borrow" at the same time, and their meanings are related. That means that their meanings can easily become confused in our memory. If this happens to you, I would suggest learning them one by one. Choose one to focus on first, and practise it. For example, if you focus on "lend", you can make some questions to ask to people (e.g. Can you lend me your phone? Can you lend me some money?) and look for opportunities to really ask those questions. You could also write some example sentences (e.g. Banks lend money) focusing on that word, look out for it when you are reading or listening, or search for "lend" in a dictionary and read the example sentences there. When the word feels comfortable and fixed in your vocabulary, move on to "borrow".
I can give you an example from my own experience. I'm trying to learn Korean, and I always mixed up the words "autumn" and "winter" because they sound similar to me. But then I listened to a podcast about winter in Korea, and they repeated the word "winter" a lot. When I made some notes after listening, I wrote "winter" many times. That helped fix the word "winter" in my mind, and then it was easier to remember "autumn" after then.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Jonathan, your suggestion to learn the new words one by one
and practise one at a time into a meaningful context is really helpful.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Corean learning as well.
Knowing your struggles while learning a foreign language is reassuring.
Hi User_1,
I'm glad it was helpful. I forgot to mention, to learn a word it also helps if you consider related words in the same word family. For example, related to "lend" are:
You may be able to make meaningful sentences with these (e.g. In my town, there are many money lenders. / Money lending between friends can cause problems), which can then help you to memorise the meaning of the base word.
About struggles, I'm sure that everyone who is learning a language can relate. Learning a language may seem like climbing a mountain, but there are many of us climbing as well so you are in good company :)
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your further hints, and for your kind encouragement about learning a foreign language.
Since English is an international and worldwide language, making mistakes in English is heavier than learning a less common language (e.g. the Italian).
This is irrelevant question but I need to ask. Would you please tell me what are the references in English language Grammar? Like a list of early books that can be considered as references for grammar.
Thanks in advance.
Hello Roman,
I'm afraid we don't recommend books, but I can make a suggestion. I'd suggest you do an internet search for 'best books to learn English grammar'. Compare the recommendations on two or three pages and then make a list of the top two or three books recommended. Then read the descriptions and, if possible, see what the pages inside look like so that you can choose the one that you think will be most useful for you.
Good luck!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Do we have some rules for changing the base form to past?
Hello themarvelous93,
The rules are explained at the top of this page. For most verbs (which we call 'regular' verbs), we add '-ed' or '-d' to the end of the base form. 'work' becomes 'worked', 'play' becomes 'played', 'escape' becomes 'escaped'.
The past forms for irregular verbs are not regular -- you just have to learn them. Sometimes people study these verbs in groups based on the past simple form -- for example, 'buy', 'bring' and 'think' all have '-ought' in their past simple form: 'bought', 'brought' and 'thought'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Adreyan,
It's twisted. It's a regular verb :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi juliafer,
Gotten is a past participle of the verb get. You could say, for example:
There is another past participle of get – got. Using got is more common in British English and using gotten is more common in American English.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nagie23,
Happy New Year to you too :)
Yes, it's correct!
There are two things here (Television and radio). So, we might consider the subject to be 'They', which needs the third person plural verb form: Television and radio have ...
But, if the speaker says Television and radio has ... , it shows that the speaker thinks of these things (Television and radio) as two parts of a single thing (e.g. broadcast media), which is an 'it' instead of a 'they'. So, the concept is slightly different.
Another example of this is: Fish and chips is delicious. We could say 'is' instead of 'are' to show that we are talking about the dish as an undivided whole.
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SajadKhan,
We'd like to check your examples but we're not sure which pages they come from. Could you please post the comment on the relevant page and let us know which exercise the examples come from, or else post a link to the page? Then we'll be able to check and correct any errors we find.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SajadKhan,
Thank you for the link. You are correct about both questions and I will edit the task accordingly. It may take a little time for the changes to appear in the task but they will be corrected.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by 'you shock or run', so I'm afraid I can't say.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
Yes, the first is better.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
'disappear' and 'vanish' are intransitive verbs, so they are not used in passive constructions like the ones in your sentences. You could say 'My car disappeared (or vanished) last night' and that would be fine.
As for your second question, yes, that is correct and well-formed.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi SonuKumar,
No, they are not.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello harish kumar sharma,
The first sentence is fine but the second is not correct.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello harish kumar sharma,
The meaning of the sentence is as follows:
When we have a sentence like this we use an infinitive after the adjective:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello hathe,
After 'will' to talk about the future we use the infinitive form. For example:
If we want to talk about something which is true now then we use a present form. For example:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello tryon,
The form 'to be' is the infinitive form of the verb. It is used in the same way as other infinitives. Your example from the magazines is an example of what is called an infinitive of purpose. This is an infinitive form used to show the reason for an action. For example, in this sentence the 'to be healthy' part means 'in order to be healthy' or 'so that we can be healthy'.
You can read more about the infinitive form, including the infinitive of purpose, on this page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello html,
'We talk later' by itself is not correct. 'We will talk later' could be correct in context -- see our talking about the future page for a more detailed explanation of the different forms typically used to speak about the future.
'talk to you later' (as a way of saying goodbye) is an abbreviated form of 'I'll talk to you later' (the word 'I'll' has been removed). In this case, 'will' is a kind of promise, I'd say.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team