Any teachers of English on here?

Originally Posted by Richie

.... correct

OK, didn't realise you were allowed to change to a completely different verb.

[Richie]

As long as it still makes sense then who cares ? I mean, I'm not even qualified to speak english.

[flymo]

Originally Posted by Richie

I hope this helps a little.
or
I hoped this helped.

Kind of. So there were plenty of examples there but whats the difference between the two? Instead of a definition describing the difference all I can find are examples.

Run it past me again. Let me see if I can make it stick.

[flymo]

Right, I found this. I think this is the clearest explanation I've seen.

'In English, regular verbs consist of three main parts: the root form (present), the (simple) past, and the past participle. Regular verbs have an -ed ending added to the root verb for both the simple past and past participle. Irregular verbs do not follow this pattern, and instead take on an alternative pattern.'

By Jove I think I've got it!

[flymo]

The more I look into this the more complex it becomes

For the verb 'go', I believe the present tense is 'going', the past is 'went' and the past participle is 'been'. Correct? And this makes it an irregular verb.

Originally Posted by flymo

The more I look into this the more complex it becomes

For the verb 'go', I believe the present tense is 'going', the past is 'went' and the past participle is 'been'. Correct? And this makes it an irregular verb.

Oh, it gets worse than that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense

You need to have a chat with my wife, she knows all this s**t in three languages!

[flymo]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Oh, it gets worse than that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense

You need to have a chat with my wife, she knows all this s**t in three languages!

lol, now that is just taking the pi$$

[Stu]

Originally Posted by flymo

The more I look into this the more complex it becomes

For the verb 'go', I believe the present tense is 'going', the past is 'went' and the past participle is 'been'. Correct? And this makes it an irregular verb.

Correct

Originally Posted by flymo

Right, I found this. I think this is the clearest explanation I've seen.

'In English, regular verbs consist of three main parts: the root form (present), the (simple) past, and the past participle. Regular verbs have an -ed ending added to the root verb for both the simple past and past participle. Irregular verbs do not follow this pattern, and instead take on an alternative pattern.'

By Jove I think I've got it!

Yes, but I guess blame is regular too right? even though you only add a 'd'?

[Messie]

Lol you don't need me. Flymo, Richie and Ralph have explained it well.

The irregularities arise because the English language has many roots, latin, Greek, Anglo saxon and even Celt (as does our wondefully multicultural society).

It's interesting to observe how children learn the regular rules first and apply them to all verbs before they learn the irregularities. So you get " I droppeded it", "doggy eated it" etc.

Pluralisation is fun too!

Btw way, I'm a psychology teacher Chris

[flymo]

so, for verbs ending in 'y' such as 'Cry', they take on 'ied'. Cry becomes cried, fry becomes fried etc, are they regular or irregular? I would guess that they are variants of regular verbs.