The Principal Parts of a verb are the different ways it is spelled in different tenses.
There are, strictly speaking, 5 principal parts of English Verbs.
Base Form, 3rd Person Singular Form, Past Simple Form, Past Participle, Present Participle.
These are the only forms, or spellings, which a verb can take.
With these five spellings, you can use the verb in any tense just by changing the auxiliary verbs.
The 5 Principal Parts are:
The Base Form, for example "walk" which is used a lot, such as in the present simple tense.
I walk to work.
The 3rd Person Singular Form, or the “S”
Form, walks, which is used in the present simple when the subject is a single thing,
other than the speaker or the listener (in other words, not “I” or “you”).
For example: She walks to work.
The Past Simple Form, which is used for the past simple tense.
For example: I walked to work.
For regular verbs, and many irregular verbs as well, it is the same as --
The Past Participle, or the “e-d” Form, which is used for perfect tenses and adjectives.
For example: I walked to work.
The Present Participle, or the “i-n-g” form,
is used for continuous tenses.
For example: I am walking to work.
Notice that “walk” is a regular verb so the past simple form and the past participle
are the same. For many irregular verbs, they are not.
You can click on any of the Principle Part names to skip to that part of the video.
Otherwise watch all the way through. Here is an example of an irregular verb, take.
This verb's irregularity is that its Past Simple and Past Participle are different.
I take medicine She takes medicine
I took medicine I have taken medicine
I am taking medicine
Even though there are five Principal Parts
for English verbs, we usually don’t have to learn all 5 for every verb.
The 3rd person singular form is usually very easy and the Present Participle, the "i-n-g" form, is never irregular.
So even for irregular verbs, there are only three forms to memorize, and in many
cases there are actually only two because the Past Simple Form is often the same as the Past Participle.
So, there are a few verbs that are very irregular.
They don’t fit this pattern at all. To learn more about them, you could watch our Very
Irregular Verbs video. Some of these are really important, so you should definitely learn them.
The most important is the verb "To Be" and we also have a video about that.
For regular verbs, all the Principal Parts
can be formed with predictable rules. That is why the are called regular.
This video is mostly about those rules. For these words, the Vocabulary Form, what
you see in a dictionary or word list, is just the Base form by itself.
So if you see only one word in the principal parts listing in a dictionary, you can assume the verb is regular.
So "Walk", "Visit" and "Live".
are all regular.
The first principle part of a verb that we
are going to look at is the “Third Person Singular”, sometimes called the “S form”
or the “3PS form”. This is only used in the present simple tense,
when the subject is singular (talking about one person or object) and is not the speaker
or the listener. That means you use this form when the subject
is “he,” “she,” “it,”
or a singular noun, such as “the baker,” or “Mike.”
These subjects are singular and third person.
This form is made by adding an /s/ sound to the base form.
The rules for spelling are as follows:
Normally just add an “s.” to the end of the word.
“I wake up at 7:00” becomes “He wakes up at 7:00.”
“I hit the target” becomes “She hits the target.”
“I often lose my keys” becomes “My brother often loses his keys.”
“I value my friendships” becomes “She values her friendships.”
For some verbs it is not that simple. Here are a couple of rules for how to spell the
3rd person s form depending on how the verb ends.
If the verb ends with a sibilant, like a /s/ or “ʃ” sound add “e-s.”
if there is not already a silent “e,”. For example:
“I miss you a lot” becomes “She misses you a lot.”
“We wash the dogs in a bath” becomes “He washes the dogs in a bath.”
If the verb ends with a consonant and “o,” add “e-s”. For example:
“Do you like Pizza?” becomes “Does he Like Pizza?”
“They go to the shop.” becomes “She goes to the shop”.
If the verb ends with a consonant and “y” change the “y” to and “i” and add “e-s.” For example:
“The balloons fly into the air” becomes “The balloon flies into the air.”
“I try to be good” becomes “My daughter tries to be good.”
Now lets look at the Past Simple and Past Participle forms.
We will look at them together because for regular verbs and in many irregular verbs they are the same.
When the form is regular they are formed by adding “e-d”.
“I walk to work” becomes “I have walked to work.”
“We play volleyball” becomes “They played volleyball.”
If the verb ends with an "e" just add “d”.
“I face my problems” becomes “I faced my problems.”
“The airplanes glide through the sky” becomes “The airplanes glided through the sky.”
If the verb ends with a consonant and “y,” change the “y” to “i” and add “e-d.”
“We always try to please our customers” “We tried to please our customers.”
“They copy our work” becomes “They copied our work.”
This last rule is really important for spelling but doesn’t affect pronunciation.
If the verb ends with a single vowel and single consonant,
we double the consonant and add “e-d.”
For example “We flip the burgers.” becomes “We flipped the burgers.”
“I tan on the beach” becomes “I tanned on the beach.”
“They format their newsletter nicely” “They formatted their newsletter nicely.”
Again, for most irregular verbs, the Past Simple Form and the Past Participle are the same.
So you only have to memorize one different form.
So if the vocabulary listing of a dictionary only has two forms, you know the Past Simple
and Past Participle are the same.
For example: Bring, Brought
Creep, Crept Hold, Held
Make, Made Stick, Stuck
Tell, Told
Some irregular verbs are actually spelled
the same in Past Simple and Past Participle and in their Base Form as well.
For Example:
Burst,
Let
Split
For many irregular verbs, the Past Simple Form and the Past Participle are different.
It is possible that only one or the other is irregular or that both of them are.
For such verbs, the Vocabulary Form will have three words.
Sometimes the Past Simple Form or the Past Participle form
is in the regular "e-d" form. For example:
Show, Showed, Shown
Most of the time, however, both will be irregular. Like:
Choose, Chose and Chosen
Forget, Forgot, Forgotten
Shake, Shook, Shaken
Tear, Tore, Torn
Write, Wrote, Written
It is often easy to spot an irregular Past Participle of a verb even if you don’t know
that it's irregular because they frequently end with an “n”.
Now lets look at the “Present Participle”, sometimes called the “i-n-g form” or the
“continuous form” because it is used a lot with continuous tenses.
The present participle is formed by adding “i-n-g”. It is the easiest of the Principal
Parts because it is never irregular. That is why it is not usually given in the “vocabulary
form” in a dictionary but it is shown in a complete listing of the principal parts.
Normally you just add an “i-n-g.” to the end of the verb.
“We play with the kitten” becomes “We are playing with the kitten.”
“I promise he will be good” becomes “He is being good.”
If the verb ends with a silent “e,” drop the “e” and add “i-n-g.”
For example: “I wake up at 7:00” becomes “I was just waking up when he called.”
“I will vote tonight” becomes “I am voting tonight.”
If the verb ends with an “i-e,” we change the “i-e” to “y” and add “i-n-g.”
“It's sad when our pets die” becomes “It is sad to watch while our pets are dying.”
“We are going to tie the knot” becomes “They are tying the knot tomorrow.”
This last rule is really important for spelling but doesn’t affect pronunciation.
If the verb ends with a single vowel and single consonant, double the consonant and add “i-n-g.”
“I often win races” becomes “I am winning the race.”
“I run every day” becomes “I am running.”
Here are some of our examples with all their Principal Parts:
Bring, Brings, Brought, Brought, Bringing
Choose, Chooses, Chose, Chosen, Choosing
Do, Does, Did, Done, Doing
Fly, Flies, Flew, Flown, Flying
Like, Likes, Liked, Liked, Liking
Tan, Tans, Tanned, Tanned, Tanning
Run, Runs, Ran, Run, Running
Learning to form the Principal Parts of regular verbs will massively improve your ability
to speak English. Once you learn a new regular verb, you will immediately be able to start
using it in all the tenses. Knowing about the Principal Parts will help
you with irregular verbs as well because you’ll be able to understand the Vocabulary entries in dictionaries.
Thanks for watching and I hope you have found this useful.
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