Irregular verbs with "-en" endings
About this video
Some irregular verbs use an -en ending (instead of -ed) for the past perfect or past participle. Some also shift their vowel, like tear, tore, torn and speak, spoke, spoken, while others have regular-looking past tenses, like show, showed, shown. Even 'be' (been) and 'go' (gone) follow this -en pattern, though it doesn't look like it.
You'll be able to
- write the past perfect of -en verbs like torn, shown, bitten, ridden, eaten and spoken.
- explain that 'been' and 'gone' also follow the -en pattern.
- tell the simple past form apart from the -en past perfect form.
Key words
- past participle
- The verb form used after had or was, like 'torn' in 'had torn' or 'eaten' in 'was eaten'.
- past perfect
- A form for something completed before a past moment, made with 'had', like 'had torn'.
- irregular verb
- A verb that doesn't follow the usual -ed pattern.
- vowel shift
- When a verb changes its vowel sound to show time, like speak to spoke.
Transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians! Broadly we're talking about irregular verbs, but more specifically today we're gonna talk about the -en ending, which is why I'm calling this lecture taken for a ride, because of this little -en thing. So we've spoken previously about verbs that show their past tense or their past perfect or past participle forms by changing their vowel sound, like the verb to sing, right?
Present tense sing, past tense sang, past perfect aspect, had sung. So some of the words we're going to be talking about today also have that vowel change, but what's different about them is that for the past-perfect or past-participle form instead of -ed, it's -en.
Let me explain. The verb to tear, right? In its present tense it's tear, I tear this piece of paper. (paper tearing) Past tense, I tore this piece of paper. And in the past perfect, it's I had torn. Ah, I probably shouldn't have done that, I had notes on that paper.
Some verbs that fall into the category of the -en past perfect have regular-seeming past tenses. So for example, the word show. I show him the book, she showed me the book, we had shown them the book. So we're still getting this n sound. Same thing goes with prove.
Present tense, prove. Past tense, proved. Past perfect, proven. Same deal for the verb to bite. I bite, it bit, I was bitten, or it had bitten. The present tense of to ride is ride, to past is rode, and the past perfect, or past participle, is had ridden, or was ridden.
As in, the horse was ridden all around the countryside. The verb to eat works this way. Present tense eat, past tense ate, past participle or past perfect is had eaten or was eaten. So I had eaten earlier, or the cookie was eaten by Stew. The verb speak undergoes that vowel shift, so it goes speak in the present tense, spoke in the past tense and past participle or past perfect is spoken.
Even really words like to be and to go obey this rule. The -en rule. It just doesn't necessarily look like it. So to be, the past of that is either was or were. But the past perfect form of that is been, which is just be with an -en ending on it, right? Go is the same way.
So even though go has a really weird past form, I go, she went, the past perfect or past participle form is gone. And sure, the letters aren't in the right order, but the sound is there. Gone. Irregular verbs are weird, there's not denying it. But we can break them down, and they can be understood.
And you can learn anything. David out.
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