How Well Do You Know Your Verbs?

Among the eight parts of speech, verbs are a part of speech that cannot be avoided in any sentence. Verbs are words that describe actions, which is why they are also called action words. They are of different types and have different forms. When you learn the English language, it is essential to learn the verb that names every action and also how to use them in various contexts.

Verbs denote the action done by the subject or the object in a sentence. They are classified into two types based on how they are conjugated. They are termed regular verbs and irregular verbs. The past and past participles of regular verbs, such as ‘reach’, ‘jump’, ‘talk’, ‘roast’, ‘treat’, etc., are formed by adding an ‘ed’ to the end of the root verb. On the contrary, irregular verbs such as ‘sing’, ‘read’, ‘cut’, ‘buy’, ‘speak’, etc., needs a change in the spellings to be used in the past and past participle forms.

Further classification of verbs is done based on their nature. They include main verbs, auxiliary verbs, transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, finite verbs, non-finite verbs, stative verbs, modal verbs, action verbs, linking verbs and phrasal verbs.

While learning verbs, you will also have to learn how they are conjugated in order to represent the different tenses. This is where the verb forms v1 v2 v3 and so on play a role. Verb forms that represent the tenses include the base form, the past tense form, the past participle, the third-person singular form and the present participle form.

The root verb and the third-person singular form of the verb are used to indicate the simple present tense. The past form of the verb represents the past tense. The past participle form of the verb is used with have/has/had to indicate perfect tenses. The present participle form is used to represent the six progressive tenses, such as the present continuous tense, the past continuous tense, the future continuous tenses, the present perfect continuous tense, the past perfect continuous tense and the future perfect continuous tense.

Look at the following list of regular and irregular verbs and their respective verb forms to understand how they work.