Regular Verbs

There are so many types of verbs it might be helpful to review just exactly what a verb is. A verb is a word that shows action or state of being. You could say it’s the most important part of a sentence because every sentence must contain a verb. As a matter of fact, recognizing the verb is essential to understanding the sentence meaning.

In the sentence, “Lightning struck a tree,” struck is the verb and shows the action that’s going on. In the sentence, “He is a smart boy,” is is the verb but it doesn’t show action. Instead it shows the state of being.

What are regular verbs?

Verbs are a little different from most parts of speech because they can change their form. Sometimes endings are added (like -ed or -ing) and other times the verb itself becomes a different word (such as run and ran).

Regular verbs are verbs that form the past tense by adding the letter “d” or “ed” at the end.

Here’s a brief review of simple verb tenses to make things a little clearer.

Past tense: Verbs that take place in the past.

Present tense: Verbs that take place in the present.

Future tense: Verbs that will take place in the future.

Some of the most common verbs are irregular verbs and in order to form the past tense of those verbs, you have to memorize them. In the case of irregular verbs, it’s not a case of simply adding a “d” or “ed” to the end of the word.

But back to regular verbs. When it comes to regular verbs, past tense and present tense are the tenses necessary for understanding. You’ll see examples of past and present tense verbs below in the examples of regular verbs.

Examples of regular verbs

There are too many regular verbs to list them all but here are a few.

ask–asked	back–backed
chase–chased	chew–chewed
depend–depended	decide–decided
employee–employed	excuse–excused
fade–faded	fold–folded
gaze-gazed	guess-guessed
hand–handed	hunt–hunted
join–joined	joke–joked
kick-kicked	laugh-laughed
learn-learned

In the examples above the regular verbs were shown in both their present and past tenses. To make the past tense of those regular verbs, all that is necessary is to add “d” or “ed” at the end! Pretty simple, right?

Here are some sentence examples for you:

• Ask your mother if you can go to the movies with me.
• Jennifer asked her mother if she could go to the movies.
• You’ll learn about regular verbs in English class.
• Have you already learned about regular verb?
• Let’s walk around the block.
• We walked around the block.
• Move the chair over here, please.
• Michael moved the chair over there.
• Work on your math homework before you come to dinner.
• Sarah worked on her math homework before dinner.
• To score points, you have to kick the ball over the goal post.
• James kicked the ball over the goal post and scored points for his team.

As you can see recognizing a regular verb is really is a simple matter. If you can add the ending “d” or “ed” to the word to make the past tense, then the verb is the regular verb!