Conjugation
Conjugation refers to the different form of a verb depending on how it is used and who uses it. Unlike many other languages, English conjugation is fairly straightforward and presents few problems.
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Regular Verbs
This is the conjugation of a regular English verb, walk.
| infinitive | walk |
| present: I, you, we, they | walk |
| present: he she it | walks |
| past | walked |
| present participle | walking |
| past participle | walked |
Since almost all verbs have the -s and -ing endings, verbs are usually written just showing the present, past and past participle like this:
Fortunately most verbs in English are regular and spelt this way. There are a few spelling variations (see below) but as a teacher you can deal with these when they arise. Teaching the basic regular forms above will cover the majority of cases.
Irregular Verbs
Irregular verbs can have slightly different conjugations, but they generally differ in the past and the past particple. For example, this is the conjugation of the irregular verb eat.
| infinitive | eat |
| present: I, you, we, they | eat |
| present: he she it | eats |
| past | ate |
| present participle | eating |
| past participle | eaten |
As you can see, the present third person (he, she it) still takes an s on the end of the infinitive and the present participle still has an ing on the end of the infinitive. There is a full list of irregular verbs here along with their conjugations.
Irregular Third Person
There are also a very few verbs which do not follow the usual -s rule for the third person.
As you can see, aside from be, these are modal verbs, none take an -s on the third person and special care should be taken when teaching them.
Spelling Alternatives
As you can see, there are only 3 forms here. Sometimes, depending on spelling, they may change a little more. For exmaple
| infinitive | shop |
| present: I, you, we, they | shop |
| present: he she it | shops |
| past | shopped |
| present participle | shopping |
| past participle | shopped |
In this example above, the final consonant is doubled up. This happens when the verb ends with a short vowel and then a consonant.
If a verb ends with a consonant and then -e, this happens:
| infinitive | create |
| present: I, you, we, they | create |
| present: he she it | creates |
| past | created |
| present participle | creating |
| past participle | created |
Instead of adding -ed we just add -d and we drop the final -e when we add -ing.
For verbs ending in sibilants (s type sounds) then -es is added to the third person and -ed to the past.
| infinitive | kiss |
| present: I, you, we, they | kiss |
| present: he she it | kisses |
| past | kissed |
| present participle | kissing |
| past participle | kissed |
Finally, with verbs ending in -y, the end is replaced by -ies or -ied.
| infinitive | cly |
| present: I, you, we, they | cly |
| present: he she it | cries |
| past | cyied |
| present participle | crying |
| past participle | cried |
