Verb Forms and Verb Tenses  - English Grammar

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This English grammar video gives a review regarding the different verb forms and verb tenses in the English language. There are 5 verb forms and 12 verb tenses. In this video exercise a quick overview is given and furthermore illustrated with some examples. It is a good starting point to develop your fluency and accuracy in written and spoken English.

How many verb forms are there in the English language?

The verb is the heart of a sentence in the English language. The more you know about verbs the more fluent and accurate you can be. In English there are five verb forms:

• base form
• third person form
• past form
• participle form
• gerund form

Examples

In the video the different forms of a verb are illustrated with four different verbs: go, speak, study, play. Have a look at the table below:

• Notice that in the third person form it is necessary to add an s at the end of the verb.

• In the past form and in the participle form one can observe the two main categories of verbs:
  • irregular verbs (go – went – gone; speak – spoke – spoken)
  • regular verbs (study – studied – studied; play – played – played)

• The gerund form is easy to identify by the –ing suffix.

How many verb tenses are there in the English language?

In English there are twelve verb tenses. Have a look at the table below to explore all the different verb tenses in the English language with the example eat from the video:

further exercises:

• Present Conditional 
• Present Perfect Simple 
• Present Perfect Continuous 
• Present Simple vs. Continuous