Content
Regular and irregular verbs
This is Elvis Presley a famous American Singer.
In this topic, you will study the simple past and past participle forms of verbs in English. Remember that there are two kinds of verbs in English: regular and irregular verbs.
Regular verbs are the verbs which follow certain rules for making their past and past participle forms. There are many spelling and pronunciation rules for the past and past participle forms of regular verbs. You will study these rules in this unit.
Irregular verbs are verbs which do not follow a rule for making their past and past participle forms. You will need to learn these forms by heart to use them properly.
Also, you will study the differences between simple past forms and past participle forms regarding meaning. Remember that past forms are used in the simple past tense, while past participle forms are used for the present perfect and the passive voice.
My name is Rodney Patterson.
Today you will learn a little bit about lifestyles of celebrities in the past.
In this session you are going to learn more about the past simple and past participle of regular and irregular verbs when talking about how people lived in the past.
By the end of this topic you will:
• Use regular and irregular verbs in the past and past participle while learning about the life of some past celebrities and their lifestyles to give information about people and past events.
This is Elvis Presley a famous American Singer.
Wow! Elvis had a really great life!
Now, let’s look
at some
verbs:
purchased
started
lived
watched
served
has received
have changed
As you can see we add the letters –ed to a regular verb to put it in the past or past participle. But this does not always happen, there are some exceptions. Look at the following table.
Play |
Played |
Played |
|
one vowel + one Consonat |
|||
|
Exercise 1
Now that you learned about the spelling of regular verbs. Please do the following exercise.
Great job!
Now you know how to use regular
verbs in the past and past participle.
Now listen to the pronunciation of these verbs.
Do they sound similar?
Listen and repeat.
Arrived Listened |
|
Relaxed Stopped |
Chatted Textted |
Ok, now it’s time for you to practice the pronunciation.
Exercise 2
After watching the video about the correct pronunciation of the regular verbs, do the following exercise to check your understanding.
You are doing a great job!
Now let’s continue
with the next
famous person.
This is Marilyn Monroe.
Wow! Marilyn Monroe had a really great life! Now, let’s look at some of the following verbs:
met
took
had
been
given
made
These are irregular verbs. Irregular verbs change completely from present to past, take a look at them:
find give have make meet |
found gave had made met |
found given had made met |
Notice, when you talk in the past you use the second column, but, when you use the auxiliaries have or has, we use the third column, like in the following examples
Marilyn Monroe gave all her money to her family
Marilyn Monroe has given inspiration to many fashion designers.
Exercise 3
Now that you finished checking the information about irregular verbs, it’s time to do an exercise to check your understanding.
Exercise 4
You are doing a great job!
Irregular verbs are a little bit difficult,
but with practice you will master them.
Now that you know more about regular and irregular verbs let’s do an exercise combining them.
Choose the most appropriate option for the following statements.
You can check your score at the end of the exercise.
Activity 1
Look at the
following picture.
What year
do you
think it was?
Baumgardner, E. (s.f.). Family watching television [photo]. Take https://goo.gl/6uhl8l
If you chose letter B
you were correct!
It was
in the
1950´s.
Before you start reading, What do you think Americans did in the 1950’s for fun? Have you ever seen a movie from the 1950’s (Like Back to the future, Forrest Gump.etc)?
Read the following text about life in the US in the 1950’s. In this text there are several verbs in simple past and past participle.
Write the verb in parentheses in the correct form, either past simple or past participle. If you have any doubts with the vocabulary, please check the glossary.
Activity 2
It’s time to answer the following questions from the article “Lifestyles of American people in the 50’s.” Answer these statements as True (T) or False (F). Once you finish, check your results.
Activity 3
Beckham, D. (2009). Cup final with David Beckham [photo]. Take https://goo.gl/k5WS9S
Do you recognize
the man
in the picture?
Are you
a soccer fan?
Listen to an audio about David Beckham, the soccer player. Then write the correct verb in the space.
Activity 4
Now that you finished listening about David Beckham’s life, let’s answer some questions about it.
Activity 5
Imagine that a local magazine for their next issue asked you to write an article about how your grandparents lived.
First write some notes answering these questions: What do you think your grandparents did to have fun? Do you think they…
-Danced to rock & roll music
-Drank soda pop
-Went to the cinema
Using the answers to the questions and adding other activities that you consider essential, write your article (2 paragraphs minimum, maximum 3)
Please, don’t forget to check all the elements that you have to take into account for this activity which are indicated in the checklist to evaluate yourself. You can verify your text on www.langugaetool.org
Take a look at the following example:
Activity 6
Check this image of some
children in the 1990’s.
What did the children
do back then?
a. They played with their tablets and smartphones.
b. They watched cartoons and played videogames.
c. They listened to the radio.
Hancock, J., (2010). Mario vs Luigi [illustration]. Take https://goo.gl/kRm9QI
If you chose B, you were right!
And what about you.
What did you do when
you were a kid?
Talk about your favorite activities when you were a child and some activities you continue doing (using have + past participle).
Record yourself talking about this in 3-5 minutes, remember to use verbs in past simple and past participle.
Here you have an example.
When your recording is ready, evaluate your work with the checklist below.
Exercise 5
Once you have finished the lesson it is time to evaluate what you have learned about regular and irregular verbs.
Exercise 6
Do you remember how to pronounce the –ed endings? We saw this information at the beginning of this topic. Use that information to choose the correct sound for each verb.
Exercise 7
In this test you will have the opportunity to test your knowledge about irregular verbs.
Now you know more about regular verbs in the simple past, their pronunciation and spelling, and verbs in the past participle and when to use them. You will continue seeing these verbs throughout your practice in English, so it’s important to review them continuously. Feel free to review the information in this topic.
• Biography.com. (2016). Marilyn Monroe biography. [online] Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/marilyn-monroe-9412123[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].
• Latham-Koenig, C. (2013). American english file 1 itools. Oxford University Press.
• M., M. (2013). Top 10 Reasons Life Was Better In the Fifties - Listverse. [online] Listverse. Available at: http://listverse.com/2013/02/27/top-10-reasons-life-was-better-in-the-fifties/[[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].
• Bornrich. (2011). David Beckham - Bornrich. [online] Available at: http://www.bornrich.com/david-beckham.html[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].
• Merriam-webster.com. (2016). Dictionary and Thesaurus | Merriam-Webster. [online] Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].
• Biography.com. (2016) Stephen King biography. [online] Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/stephen-king-9365136[Accessed 4 Nov. 2016].
• Englishpage.com. (2016). ENGLISH PAGE - Simple Past. [online] Available at: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/simplepast.html[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].
• Learnenglish.de. (2016). English Grammar - Past Participle - Learn English. [online] Available at: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/participlepast.html[Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].