Tag: Learning by Practising

Past Participle in Question Phrases

In today’s post we will be learning all about the past participle in question phrases! If you use the phrase “Have you ever…” it is essential to put the following verb in the form of a past participle. Here is an example of the difference:

  • Instead of saying:
    • Have you ever went to California before?
  • Say:
    • Have you ever been to California before?

The past participle normally accompanies another verb in this case the word “have”. The past participle is typically referred to as the third form of the verb and can often be made by adding on these endings : ed, d, or t.

For example:

  • Sleep : slept : slept
  • Jump : jumped : jumped
  • Wear: wore : worn
  • Be : was/were : been

As you can see, sometimes the past participle is exactly the same as the regular past tense but other times things can be more difficult if the verb is irregular! For that reason, it will be useful to look specifically at a list of verbs that are irregular in the past participle so that you can begin to memorize them:

Here is a long list of irregular verbs: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/support-files/50_common_irregular_verbs_list.pdf

However below I have compiled a list of the top 10 most used irregular verbs where in the past participle is different from the regular past tense!

 

  1. Be : was/were : been
  2. Become: became: become
  3. Drink: drank: drunk
  4. Do : did: done
  5. Eat: ate: eaten
  6. Give: gave: given
  7. Write: wrote: written
  8. Wear: wore: worn
  9. Speak: spoke: spoken
  10. Sing: sang: sung

Let’s practice using some of these new irregular verbs!

Past Participle Quiz

Try and conjugate the following verbs into the past participle.

Imperatives

Maybe you are trying to give someone directions or your friend needs help cooking and you do not know which verb form to use. Choosing the correct verb form in English is very important and can often times lead to confusion. For that reason, we will look at something called IMPERATIVES.

HINT: it is actually very easy!

Imperatives are used to give instructions or orders. An imperative is formed from the infinitive form of the verb (base form). An imperative comes from the second person, which means we use it to talk directly to someone else.

We can use imperatives to:
Give orders
Give directions

Here are some examples of imperatives in the positive:
Be quiet, the students are working.
Let’s go home
Close the door.
Turn right at the next street.

For the negative, we simply add do not (or don’t) before the infinitive.
Do not shout, I can hear you.
Don’t walk on the grass
Do not run near the pool.
Don’t do that

Try these exercises and test your understanding.

Imperatives

Choose the correct answer.

 

I hope this went well for you. Thank you for working so hard in and out of the classroom. The more you practice the better your English will be. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.

Comparatives – Introducing to the Parents

When talking about friends and family it may be very common to compare them to other people that you know. Especially if you are describing a person to someone who hasn’t met them yet. You would need to compare them to other people that they do know so they can understand what this new person is like! Using lots of comparatives this way is a great method of describing new people. In the example below a boy is describing the girl he is dating to his parents. Do you think he is worried what his parents might think of her? Or is he excited to introduce them? Pay attention to how he compares her to other people!

“Her name is Fiona and she is smarter than anyone else I have dated. She is more interested in books than Greg – and he’s a lawyer! She’s prettier than Angelina Jolie and funnier than Jerry Seinfeld. She’s a little shorter than I am, and her hair is much darker than mine. She is also a big fan of JRR Tolkein, she might be a bigger fan of Lord of the Rings than anyone else I know. She is also an excellent cook, dare I say she’s a better cook than Mom. Obviously, she’s the best.”

Comparatives Quiz

Choose the correct form of each word when being used as a comparative.