The Simple Tenses and Participles of Regular Verbs

Verbs in English use certain word endings, or the absence of endings, to indicate person, number and tense.

Most verbs in English follow one particular general pattern of endings. Any verb that follows this general pattern for forming the simple tenses and the present and past participles is a regular verb.

This is the pattern for regular verbs:

I walk	you want	you look	we kick	they melt
he walks	she wants	he looks	he kicks	it melts
she walked	he wanted	we looked	they kicked	it melted
he is walking	we are wanting	you were looking	they were kicking	it was melting
she has walked	he had wanted	we had looked	I have kicked	it has melted

The Simple Present Tense

The form of a verb that is used for the first and second person singular and the first, second and third person plural of the simple present tense is the base form of the verb, the simplest form of the verb with nothing added on to it.

I talk	you talk	we talk	they talk
I rest	you rest	we rest	they rest
I blink	you blink	we blink	they blink
I mend	you mend	we mend	they mend

The ‘base form’ of a verb is the verb’s most basic form. It is, for example, the form in which a verb is listed in a dictionary. It is the form of the verb that has no extra endings added to it to indicate person, number or tense.

Verbs in the third person singular of the simple present tense end in -s. The -s is usually, but not always, added to the base form of the verb.

The part of the word that an ending or inflection such as -s or -ing or -ed is added to is called the stem. The stem is usually just the base form of the verb, but in some cases slight changes have to be made to the spelling of the base form to make the stem to which the inflection is added, such as doubling final consonants or deleting final e’s.

If the base form of the verb ends in s, z, x, sh or ch, then the ending is -es rather than just -s:

If the base form ends in a у which is preceded by a consonant, the у changes to i before the ending is added, and the ending is -es:

But if the у is preceded by a vowel, the у does not change, and the ending is -s:

If the base form ends in o, the spelling rules are a little more complicated:

• If the base form ends in oo, just add -s: boo — he boos, coo — a pigeon coos, moo — a cow moos
• If there is any other vowel before the final o, add -s: video — He videos a lot of films, radio — He quickly radios headquarters for reinforcements.
• Almost all verbs whose base form ends in о following a consonant add -es in the third person singular: go — she goes, tango — she tangoes, echo — it echoes, veto — he vetoes
• Exceptions to rule are rare: disco — She discos every Saturday night.

The third person singular of the verb bus is either buses or busses. The third person singular of gas is gases and the third person singular of quiz is quizzes.

The Simple Past Tense

The simple past tense of a regular verb is generally formed by adding -ed to the stem.

If the base form of the verb ends in e, just add -d to form the simple past tense:

If the base form ends in у and the у is preceded by a consonant (not a vowel), the у changes to i before the ending -ed is added:

Three verbs are slightly irregular: the simple past tenses of lay, pay and say are laid, paid and said.

If the base form is a word of one syllable which ends in a single vowel letter followed by a single consonant (e.g. drip, pin) or else is stressed on its last syllable and ends in a single vowel letter followed by a single consonant (e.g. pre’fer, re’mit, em’bed), the consonant is doubled before the -emending is added:

If the vowel Is not stressed, or if there is more than one vowel letter in the syllable, then the consonant is not doubled:

In British English, a final I following a single vowel always doubles, regardless of the position of the stress:

In American English, on the other hand, I obeys the general rule and is doubled only if the preceding single vowel is stressed:

If the base form ends in a single vowel followed by c, the c becomes ck before the ending is added:

The verb arc is an exception: its past tense is arced.

A number of regular verbs have slightly irregular past tense forms in addition to regular ones, and there are differences in usage between British and American English. (Fuller information about some of these verbs is given in the Appendix):

• burn: burned OR burnt
• dream: dreamed OR dreamt
• dwell: dwelled OR (more commonly) dwelt
• kneel: kneeled OR knelt
• knit: knitted OR knit
• lean: leaned OR leant
• leap: leaped OR leapt
• learn: learned OR (Br. Eng.) learnt
• smell: smelled OR smelt
• spell: spelled OR spelt
• spill: spilled OR spilt
• spoil: spoiled OR spoilt
• sweat: sweated OR (Am. Eng.) sweat

The Present Participle

The present participles of regular verbs are usually formed by adding -ing to the base form.

If the base form of the verb ends in e, the e is dropped before -ing is added:

But if the stem ends in oe or ее, the final e is not dropped before the ending:

And if the stem ends in ie, the ie becomes у before the -ing:

As with the simple past tense, a final consonant must sometimes be doubled before the ending is added. The rules for this are exactly the same as for the formation of the past tenses:

Where the final consonant is not doubled in the past tense, it is not doubled in the present participle either:

Note also:

• panic — panicked, panicking
• mimic — mimicked, mimicking

but on the other hand, the exception:

• arc — arced, arcing

Note the following verbs that do not, or may not, drop the final e before adding -ing:

• age — ageing OR aging
• binge — bingeing OR (Am. Eng.) binging
• eye — eyeing OR (much less commonly) eying
• singe — singeing
• whinge — whingeing

Note also the adjective swingeing, which is derived from an old verb swinge, meaning ‘to hit hard’.

The Past Participle

The past participles of regular verbs are always the same as the simple past tense forms.

• she walked — she has walked
• they argued — they have argued
• we panicked — we had panicked
• he died — he had died
• she stayed — she had stayed

There are a few verbs that have both regular past participles and also past participles that are not regular. There is some variation in usage between British and American English.

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
mow	mowed	mowed or mown
prove	proved	proved or proven
saw	sawed	sawed (American English) sawn (British English)
sew	sewed	sewed or sewn (more commonly)
shear	sheared	sheared or shorn
show	showed	shown (more commonly) showed
sow	sowed	sowed sown (more commonly)
swell	swelled	swelled or swollen
thrive	thrived or (less commonly) throve	thrived or (much less commonly) thriven