2. What is verb tense?
Verb tense tells when an action happened: in the
past, in the present, or in the future.
Verbs change their form and use the helping verbs
have or be to indicate different tenses.
Present tense: Rick hikes every weekend.
Past tense: He hiked ten miles last weekend.
Future tense: He will hike again on Saturday.
3. Types of verbs
Most verbs in English are regular verbs that
follow standard rules about what endings to use
to express time.
Irregular verbs do not follow the regular
pattern for endings.
4. Regular present-tense endings
The present tense is used for actions that are
happening at the same time that they are being
written about (the present) and for things that
happen all the time.
Present-tense, regular verbs end either in –s, or
they have no ending added.
Use the –s ending when the subject is he, she, it, or
the name of one person or thing. Use no ending
for all other subjects.
5. Regular verbs in the present tense
Singular Plural
First person I jump We jump
Second person You jump You jump
Third person She (he, it) jumps They jump
The child jumps The children jump
6. Regular past-tense endings
The past tense is used for actions that have
already happened.
An –ed ending is needed on all regular verbs in the
past tense.
7. Present tense and past tense verb
endings
Present tense Past tense
First person I avoid her. I avoided her.
Second person You help me. You helped me.
Third person He walks fast. He walked fast.
8. Regular past-participle ending
The past participle is a verb that is used with a
helping verb, such as have.
For all regular verbs, the past-participle form is the
same as the past tense form. It uses an –ed
ending.
Past tense: I visited my cousins.
Past participle: I have visited my cousins.
9. Irregular verbs
Irregular verbs do not follow the regular
pattern for endings. The following are some
common irregular verbs: be, bring, do, get, give, go,
have/has, make, say, see, speak, take, write.
10. Irregular verbs
Present tense Past tense Past participle
(used with has/have)
be (am/are/is) was/were been
bring brought brought
do did done
get got gotten
give gave given
go went gone
have/has had had
make made made
11. More irregular verbs
Present tense Past tense Past participle
(used with has/have)
say said said
see saw seen
speak spoke spoken
take took taken
write wrote written
cost cost cost
begin began begun
read read read
12. Present tense of two irregular verbs
Be Have
I am We are I have You have
You are You are You have You have
He, she, it is They are He, she, it has They have
The editor is The editors are
Beth is Beth and
Christina are
13. Irregular verbs in the past tense
Irregular verbs do not use the –ed ending for
the past-tense form. They show the past tense
with a change in spelling or in some other way.
14. Irregular verbs in the past tense
Present tense Past tense
I begin today. I began yesterday.
You sleep very soundly. You slept late this morning.
I let the dog in today. I let the dog in yesterday.
15. The verb be, past tense
The verb be is tricky because it has two different forms
for the past tense: was and were.
Singular Plural
First person I was We were
Second person You were You were
Third person He, she, it was They were
The student was The students were
16. Irregular verbs in the past participle
For irregular verbs, the past participle is often
different from the past tense.
It is difficult to predict how irregular verbs form the
past participle. It may be helpful to refer to a chart or
list of irregular past participles.
Past tense Past participle
Regular verb I walked home. I have walked home before.
Irregular verb I drove home. I have driven home before.
17. Using past participles
A past participle, by itself, cannot be the main
verb of a sentence.
But when a past participle is combined with
another verb, called a helping verb, it can be
used to make the present perfect tense and the
past perfect tense.
18. Have/has + past participle = present
perfect tense
The present perfect tense is used for an action that
began in the past and either continues into the present
or was completed at some unknown time in the past.
Present perfect tense: My car has stalled several
times recently. (This sentence says that the stalling
began in the past but may continue into the present.)
Past tense: My car stalled. (This sentence says that the
car stalled once and that it’s over.)
19. Had + past participle = past perfect
tense
Use had plus the past participle to make the past
perfect tense.
The past perfect tense is used for an action that began in
the past and ended before some other past action.
Past perfect tense: My car had stalled several times
before I called the mechanic. (This sentence says that
both the stalling and calling the mechanic happened in the
past, but the stalling happened before the calling.)
20. Be + past participle = passive voice
A sentence that is written in the passive voice
has a subject that does not perform an action.
Instead, the subject is acted upon.
To create the passive voice, combine a form of be
with a past participle.
Passive: The newspaper was thrown onto the
porch. (The subject, newspaper, did not throw
itself onto the porch. Some unidentified person
threw the newspaper.)
21. Active voice
Most sentences are written in the active voice,
which means that the subject performs the
action.
Active: The delivery person threw the
newspaper onto the porch. (The subject, delivery
person, performed the action: he or she threw the
newspaper.)
22. Passive vs. active voice
Use the passive voice when no one person performed
the action, when you don’t know who performed the
action, or when you want to emphasize the receiver of
the action.
Do not overuse the passive voice. When you know who
performed the action, it is usually preferable to identify
the actor.
Active: The bandleader chose Kelly to do a solo.
Passive: Kelly was chosen to do a solo.
(If you wanted to emphasize Kelly’s being chosen rather
than the bandleader’s choice, you might decide to use
the passive voice.)
23. Changing from active to passive voice
He sent the payment over two weeks ago.
First, identify the subject (he) and the verb (sent).
Ask: What word in the sentence is receiving the action?
Payment.
Cross out the subject.
Make the word that is receiving the action the subject
by moving it to the beginning of the sentence.
Add the correct form of the verb be in front of the
main verb.
You can either delete the performer of the action or put
this information after the verb and the word by.
The payment was sent two weeks ago by him.
24. Consistency of verb tense
Consistency of verb tense means that all actions in a
sentence that happen (or happened) at the same time
are in the same tense.
If all of the actions happen in the present or happen all
the time, use the present tense for all verbs in the
sentence.
If all of the actions happened in the past, use the past
tense for all verbs.
When you edit your writing, make sure that any time a
verb tense changes it is because the action the verb
describes happened at a different time. Otherwise, the
shift in tenses causes an inconsistency.
25. Consistency of verb tense
Inconsistent: The movie started just as we
take our seats. (The actions both happened at
the same time, but started is in the past tense, and
take is in the present tense.)
Consistent, present tense: The movie starts
just as we take our seats. (The actions and verb
tenses are both in the present.)
Consistent, past tense: The movie started just
as we took our seats. (The actions started and
took both happened in the past, and both are in
the past tense.)
