Choose between the past tense and past participle

1. Understanding the Past Tense and Past Participle

  • Past Tense: Describes actions that have already happened.
  • Past Participle: A verb form used in perfect tenses and passive voice.

2. Forming the Past Tense

  • For regular verbs, add -ed to the base form of the verb.
  • Examples:
    • “play” → “played”
    • “walk” → “walked”
  • For irregular verbs, the past tense form can change in various ways.
  • Examples:
    • “go” → “went”
    • “see” → “saw”

3. Forming the Past Participle

  • For regular verbs, the past participle is the same as the past tense: -ed.
  • Examples:
    • “play” → “played”
    • “walk” → “walked”
  • For irregular verbs, the past participle can be different from both the base and past tense forms.
  • Examples:
    • “go” → “gone”
    • “see” → “seen”

4. When to Use Past Tense

  • Use the past tense when describing actions that happened and are completed.
  • Examples:
    • “I walked to school yesterday.”
    • “She finished her homework last night.”

5. When to Use Past Participle

  • Use the past participle in perfect tenses (have, has, had) and passive voice.
  • Perfect Tenses:
    • “I have finished my project.”
    • “They had seen the movie before.”
  • Passive Voice:
    • “The cake was baked by my mom.”
    • “The book has been read by many people.”

6. Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Confusing the past tense and past participle forms.
  • Incorrect: “She has went to the store.”
  • Correct: “She has gone to the store.”
  • Using the wrong form in sentences.
  • Incorrect: “I have saw the play.”
  • Correct: “I have seen the play.”

Let’s practice!