Regular and Irregular Verbs

Regular Verbs

The simple past and past participle of regular verbs end in -ed. For example.

                       base form:     clean            improve         paint        carry

simple past/past participle:    cleaned        improved       painted    carried

We use the past participle to make the perfect tenses (have/has/had cleaned) and for all the passive forms.

• I cleaned my room yesterday. (simple pas)
• Your English has improved. (present perfect)
• The house was dirty. We hadn't cleaned it for long time. (past perfect)
• This door has just been painted. (present perfect passive)
• He was carried out of the room. (simple past passive)

Irregular Verbs

with some irregular verbs, all three forms (base form, simple past, and past participle) are the same. For example, hit.

• Someone hit me as I came into the room. (simple past)
• I've never hit anyone in my life. (past participle - present perfect)
• George was hit on the head by a rock. (past participle - passive)

with other irregular verbs, the simple past is the same as the past participle (but different from the base form). For example, tell - told.

• She told me to come back the next day. (simple past)
• Have you told anyone about your new job? (past participle - present perfect)
• I was told to come back the next day. (past participle - passive)

with other irregular verbs all three forms are different. For example, break - broke - broken.

• He broke his arm in a climbing accident. (simple past)
• Somebody has broken the window. (past participle - present perfect)
• When was the window broken? (past participle - passive)

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(for see the irregular verb's list)