Regular Verbs

Three past blog posts dealt with different tenses of verbs (past, present, and future). This post is going to deal with the concept of "regular verbs." Have you heard of that term before? A regular verb is one that follows the "regular" rule when changing it to the past tense. Let's look at a few examples and then get into the specifics.

Present tense form: cook
Past tense form: cooked

Present tense form: paint
Past tense form: painted

Present tense form: use
Past tense form: used

What's so "regular" about that? Well, all past tense forms took the present tense form and just added "-ed" to the end. There was no change in the form of the original verb.

For a list of the 600 most common regular verbs, visit this site: http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/regular-verbs-list.htm. When you get there, scroll through the list. Pick one regular verb, come back to this blog, type the verb in it's present tense form, and then type it in the past tense form. Can you then use that regular past tense form in a sentence? Give it a shot!

Example:
Present tense: calculate
Past tense: calculated
Sentence: I calculated the waiter's tip.