A verb changes shape to show who does the action and when it happens. Almost every English verb has five forms, and every tense in the language is built from one of them.
This lesson names the five forms and shows what each one looks like. How they combine into tenses comes later — here we are learning the alphabet, not the words.
The five forms at a glance
work (regular)
- base: work
- -s form: works
- past simple: worked
- past participle: worked
- -ing form: working
go (irregular)
- base: go
- -s form: goes
- past simple: went
- past participle: gone
- -ing form: going
be (highly irregular)
- base: be
- -s form: is (also am, are)
- past simple: was, were
- past participle: been
- -ing form: being
Three of the forms (base, -s form, -ing form) are completely predictable. The other two — past simple and past participle — are predictable for regular verbs and have to be learned for irregular ones. That split is covered separately.
1. Base form
The base form is the dictionary form of the verb: work, go, eat, write, have, be. It carries no ending and tells you nothing about who or when.
It appears in three places:
- As the infinitive, with or without to: to work, to travel. After modal verbs the to drops away: can work, must travel, should leave.
- In the present simple for every subject except he / she / it: I work, you work, we work, they work.
- As the imperative, when you give an instruction: Close the door. Wait here. Be quiet.
2. The -s form
The -s form is the third-person singular of the present simple. You use it whenever the subject is he, she, it, or any single person, animal, or thing.
Most verbs simply add -s: work → works, run → runs, read → reads. Verbs ending in -ch, -sh, -ss, -x, -o take -es: watch → watches, go → goes. Verbs ending in a consonant + y change to -ies: study → studies.
This is the only present-tense ending in modern English, which is why missing it is the most common mistake at A1.
3. Past simple form
The past simple form describes an action that was completed in the past. It is the same for every subject — there is no extra ending for he or she.
For regular verbs, you add -ed: work → worked, talk → talked, arrive → arrived. For irregular verbs, the form is unpredictable and must be memorized: go → went, see → saw, take → took, write → wrote.
The verb be is the only verb in English that has two past simple forms: was for I, he, she, it, and were for you, we, they.
4. Past participle
The past participle is the form used after the helper have (in perfect tenses) and after the helper be (in the passive voice). On its own it is not a complete verb — it always needs a helper.
For regular verbs, the past participle looks identical to the past simple: work → worked, talk → talked. For irregular verbs, it is often a third, distinct form: go → went → gone, write → wrote → written, take → took → taken, eat → ate → eaten.
How perfect tenses and passive sentences are built is covered in their own sections.
5. The -ing form
The -ing form (also called the present participle) is made by adding -ing to the base: work → working, read → reading, run → running, write → writing. The spelling is regular for every verb in English, including irregular ones.
Its main job is to combine with be to form the continuous tenses:
The -ing form's double life
The same word does two completely different jobs in English. As a present participle, it pairs with be and acts like a verb:
As a gerund, the same -ing form acts like a noun — it can be a subject, an object, or sit after a preposition:
The form is identical; the role in the sentence is what tells you which one it is. The gerund use is explored more fully in its own section.
A note on "be"
Be is the most irregular verb in English. Instead of the usual five forms it has eight: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been. The present simple alone uses three different words (am, is, are) depending on the subject, and the past simple uses two (was, were).
Every other verb in the language fits the five-form pattern. Be is the one exception you simply learn by heart.
Common mistakes
Missing the -s on third person
Adding -s where it doesn't belong
Wrong form after a modal
Past participle vs past simple
Be forms