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A verb is the main part of a sentence that describes an action, condition or experience. Different verb forms determine the tense of when actions have taken place. An action takes place in either the past, present or future. Verbs are either ‘doing’ or ‘being’ words. First, let’s have a look at the ‘doing’ verbs, which consist of ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ verbs.
Regular and Irregular Verbs (‘Doing’ Words)
Every verb is either a regular verb or an irregular verb. The difference between these two forms of verbs are their behaviours when changing tense. Regular verbs follow the same rules as one another and are the most common, as the number of these verbs reaches the tens of thousands. Irregular verbs, on the other hand, do not follow the same rules and altogether consist of less than 400 verbs.
Regular Verbs
These verbs follow the same pattern when changing the tense or mood of their basic forms. They do this by either adding ‘-s’, ‘-ing’ or ‘-ed’. There are tens of thousands of regular verbs in the English language and so it would be impossible to illustrate them all; however, take a look at the table below for a few examples:
| Basic Form | Present | Present Participle | Past/Past Participle |
| smile | smiles | smiling | smiled |
| walk | walks | walking | walked |
| accept | accepts | accepting | accepted |
| hug | hugs | hugging | hugged |
| invite | invites | inviting | invited |
| phone | phones | phoning | phoned |
| waste | wastes | wasting | wasted |
| yawn | yawns | yawning | yawned |
Irregular Verbs
A lot of spelling mistakes tend to occur when changing the tense of the basic forms of irregular verbs. Again, we cannot illustrate them all so, if you are able, try researching irregular verbs and memorising their different spellings as this could help you avoid any spelling mistakes in your exam. Below are examples of a few irregular verbs:
| Basic Form | Present | Present Participle | Past | Past Participle |
| freeze | freezes | freezing | froze | frozen |
| begin | begins | beginning | began | begun |
| forgive | forgives | forgiving | forgave | forgiven |
| swim | swims | swimming | swam | swum |
| bet | bets | betting | bet | bet |
| give | gives | giving | gave | given |
| drink | drinks | drinking | drank | drunk |
| choose | chooses | choosing | chose | chosen |
Auxiliary Verbs (‘Being’ Words)
Auxiliary verbs, which are sometimes referred to as ‘helping’ verbs, assist main verbs in a sentence to express a wide range of meanings and to alter a basic verb form’s tense. Auxiliary verbs are either known as primary auxiliary verbs or modal auxiliary verbs.
The Primary Auxiliary Verbs
Primary auxiliary verbs conjugate; in other words, they are used to form the tense, mood and voice of other verbs. There are three primary auxiliary verbs which are ‘to be’, ‘to do’ and ‘to have’. The following tables provide the conjugated forms with examples.
| Be | Do | Have |
| am | do | have |
| is | does | has |
| are | did | had |
| was | doing | having |
| were | done | |
| being | ||
| been |
The Modal Auxiliary Verbs
Unlike the primary auxiliary verbs, modal auxiliaries do not change form. The modal auxiliaries are: can, could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, would.
