An Introduction To English Verbs

Verbs are a key part of the English language and you can’t have a proper sentence without them, so let’s look at what they are and how they work.

What Are Verbs?

Verbs are often taught as “action” words, which is very true, but they can also be a state or event.

They are often taught in school as “doing words” as they pretty much describe something that is done (an action) and you will find a verb in every sentence in English (along with a subject).

Someone/thing is always doing something. The base of any sentence contains this, no matter now complex it gets.

Just look at any sentence, there will always be one.

Action verbs are easy to spot, like walking, jumping or eating. However, event type verbs are trickier to spot, as they can still be a type of “action”, it’s maybe just a bit looser with definition. If you think of the word “died” this would be an event verb …but you can look at this as the person did the action of dying.

The same can be said for state verbs, you can still see this as sort of action, even if it a bit vague. If we look at the verb “know” you can see this as the person is in the state of knowing, they are doing the action of understanding. I will admit that is a bit abstract, but it does make sense when you think about it.

Verbs Change Depending On The Tense – Conjugation

I am not really going to go into too much detail here about this, as really this should be its own lesson (probably multiple) but like a lot of languages, English uses conjugation.

Really all this means is that you can take a verb in its dictionary form …and change it to fit the situation.

If we look at “to walk”, this would be in basic dictionary version of this verb, then we can change it depending on what we want to say …which really means we change the tense, or conjugate it.

If I want to talk about the past, I can use “walked” or “walking” and if want talk about the future we need to probably use some helper verbs such as “will walk”.  However, as I said this can all be looked at in more detail in another lesson.  

It Also Depends On The Subject

Conjugation also depends on the subject, which really means the verb may change slightly depending on who or what you are talking about. This is also pretty common in other languages, especially ones like French.

English doesn’t have as many changes, which might make it easier … or maybe not.

If we look at the verb “talk” you will see it changes depending on who we are talking about, even if all the examples are using the same tense:

I talk

You talk

She/he talks

We talk

They talk

As you can see, the change is small, its only one letter. The he/she version is plural and you will find examples of this happening with many verbs.

If you speak to anyone who is a native English speaker, they will say we don’t have conjugation, but we do. These tiny changes in how the verb is used are conjugation and while it’s easy for us, I would imagine trying to remember these minute differences are annoying. Just keep practicing and it gets easier. 

Helper Verbs /Auxiliary

I already mentioned this above, but sometimes you will need to use a helper verb (also called an auxiliary verb) which is just where you pair a certain verb with another to change the tense.

The most common helper verbs are Be, Do and Have, but there are more and these can also be used as normal verbs too.  However, they are often found in different conjugations while being used as helpers, so things can get confusing at first. 

I have walked

I had walked

Things can get very confusing when the same verb is used as the helper and the main verb and both versions are different, for example “I have had a drink”.

The good thing is that these helper verbs are very common so you will see them a lot and get used to then quickly, but really all of this is another lesson for another day, but I just want to let you know they exist here today.

Regular/ Irregular Verbs

If you know about conjugation in any language, then you know there are rules …and where there are rules, there are exceptions and English is no different. 

If you speak to an English speaker, they will say there is hardly any irregular verbs, but this is just because they are so used to them, they don’t even realise they are irregular. There are quite a few and you will just need to learn them.

Luckily there are a few that are every common so you will quickly get used to them, such as drink –drank – drunk   …rather than the wrong drink – drinked.

This is again another lesson, where I will explain how exactly you form verbs, or in this case, not. Let’s not worry about it too much for now.

Conclusion

I feel like I have only dipped my toe into verbs here, but this is just a quick introduction to them and you will find that you cover them in a lot more detail as you get deeper into English.

They really are important and while there can be a lot to learn and plenty of “rules” you will get used to them pretty quickly. Just keep studying and keep paying attention to every sentence you see and you will soon master them. 

Return to : Beginner English Main Menu