Tag: English

‘Conditional’  indicates that the action of the verb depends on something else to happen under certain conditions or circumstances . A useful way to remember this is to think of the phrase ‘If this, then that.’ The conditional often uses words like might, could, and would.

The baby might cry if you pick him up.

This verb sentence shows what could happen under the condition of picking up the baby, so it’s an example of the conditional mood.

Another example of a verb using the conditional mood is:

He would look older with a beard.

This shows that the man looking older depends on whether or not he has a beard, so under that specific condition, he would appear to have aged.

‘Indicative’ indicates a state of factuality or states something that is happening in reality. Most sentences in English are written in the indicative mood. For example, the sentence –

The dog jumps into the car

– simply states what is really happening in the present moment.

The indicative mood can also be used in sentences that include words like ‘might’ or ‘may’ because it indicates something that is a real possibility:

That house might collapse if they don’t make the necessary repairs.

The fact that the house could actually fall down if it isn’t fixed is indicative of reality, so we would say this sentence is written in the indicative mood.

A verb is a word that conveys an action or a state of being. Verbs have tenses to tell us when the action takes place.

The three main verb tenses are the past tense, the present tense and the future tense.

Most verbs follow a regular pattern in the formation of their past tenses – to form the past tense we add a variety of suffixes -d. -ed, -ied

Most commonly verbs form the past tense by adding -ed

work – worked
jump – jumped
answer – answered

Verbs that end in a short vowel followed by a consonant usually double the consonant and add -ed

pat – patted
step – stepped
pop – popped

If a verb ends in e we just add a -d

chase – chased
praise – praised
share – shared

Verbs that end in a y drop the y and add -ied

hurry – hurried
marry – married
carry – carried

Irregular verbs do not follow this pattern. Some form the past tense by changing a vowel.  Sometimes the past participle is the same as the past tense (as it is in regular verbs) but sometimes it differs.

Follow the links below for lists of irregular verbs together with the way they form their past tenses and past participles.

The 50 most common irregular verbs in English
More irregular verbs in English