Verb Forms and Tenses
Verbs come in different forms and those forms are partly determined by the tense of the verb.
The five forms of verbs are:
- base form
- -s
- -ing
- past
- past participle
For example:
The verb sing has the following five forms:
sing, sings, singing, sang, sung
For most regular verbs, two of those forms are the same.
For example:
The verb walk has the following forms:
walk, walks, walking, walked (past and past participle).
For some irregular verbs, three of those forms are the same.
For example:
The verb cut has the following forms:
cut (base, past, and past participle), cuts, cutting
1. The base and -s forms of the verb are used as part of the present tense, for actions that are happening in the present.
For example:
- She visits her grandma.
2. The -ing form of the verb is used as part of the present progressive tense to show that something is happening at the moment.
For example:
- She visiting her grandma.
3. The past form of the verb is used as part of the past tense, for actions that happened in the past.
For example:
- She visited her grandma.
4. The past participle form of the verb is used as part of the past perfect tense to show actions that are continuous or happened over a period of time. It is usually combined with the verb has/have.
For example:
- She has visited her grandma.
| Base | -s | -ing | Past | Past Participle |
| Hold | holds | holding | held | held |
| Help | helps | helping | helped | helped |
| Hit | hits | hitting | hit | hit |
| Hope | hopes | hoping | hoped | hoped |
| Hurt | hurts | hurting | hurt | hurt |
- All verbs have five main forms: base, -s, -ing, past, and past participle.
- For most regular verbs, the past and past participle form of the verb are the same.
- For some irregular verbs, the base, past, and past participle form of the verb are the same.
