Superlative Adjectives

A superlative adjective expresses the extreme or highest degree of a quality. We use a superlative adjective to describe the extreme quality of one thing in a group of things.

In the example below, "biggest" is the superlative form of the adjective "big":

A B C

A is the biggest.

Tip: We can use superlative adjectives when talking about three or more things (not two things).

Formation of Superlative Adjectives

As with comparative adjectives, there are two ways to form a superlative adjective:

• short adjectives: add "-est"
• long adjectives: use "most"

We also usually add 'the' at the beginning.

Short adjectives
1-syllable adjectives	old, fast
2-syllable adjectives ending in -y	happy, easy
Normal rule: add "-est"	old → the oldest
Variation: if the adjective ends in -e, just add -st	late → the latest
Variation: if the adjective ends in consonant, vowel, consonant, double the last consonant	big → the biggest
Variation: if the adjective ends in -y, change the y to i	happy → the happiest
Long adjectives
2-syllable adjectives not ending in -y	modern, pleasant
all adjectives of 3 or more syllables	expensive, intellectual
Normal rule: use "most"	modern → the most modern expensive → the most expensive

Tip:

With some 2-syllable adjectives, we can use '-est' or 'most':

• quiet → the quietest/most quiet
• clever → the cleverest/most clever
• narrow → the narrowest/most narrow
• simple → the simplest/most simple

Exception
The following adjectives have irregular forms:

• good → the best
• bad → the worst
• far → the furthest

Use of Superlative Adjectives

We use a superlative adjective to describe one thing in a group of three or more things. Look at these examples:

• John is 1m75. David is 1m80. Chris is 1m85. Chris is the tallest.
• Canada, China and Russia are big countries. But Russia is the biggest.
• Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.

If we talk about the three planets Earth, Mars and Jupiter, we can use superlative adjectives as shown in the table below:

	Earth	Mars	Jupiter
Dia- meter (km)	12,760	6,790	142,800	Jupiter is the biggest.
Dis- tance from Sun (million km)	150	228	778	Jupiter is the most distant from the Sun.
Length of day (hours)	24	25	10	Jupiter has the shortest day.
Moons	1	2	16	Jupiter has the most moons.
Surface temp. (degrees Celcius)	22	-23	-150	Jupiter is the coldest.

Tip:
When we compare one thing with itself, we do not use "the":

• England is coldest in winter. (not the coldest)
• My boss is most generous when we get a big order. (not the most generous)

Comparative Adjectives

When we talk about two things, we can "compare" them. We can see if they are the same or different. Perhaps they are the same in some ways and different in other ways. We can use comparative adjectives to describe the differences.

Tip: We can use comparative adjectives when talking about two things (not three or more things).

In the example below, "bigger" is the comparative form of the adjective "big":

A1 A2

A1 is bigger than A2.

Formation of Comparative Adjectives

There are two ways to make or form a comparative adjective:

• short adjectives: add "-er"
• long adjectives: use "more"

Short adjectives
1-syllable adjectives	old, fast
2-syllable adjectives ending in -y	happy, easy
Normal rule: add "-er"	old → older
Variation: if the adjective ends in -e, just add -r	late → later
Variation: if the adjective ends in consonant, vowel, consonant, double the last consonant	big → bigger
Variation: if the adjective ends in -y, change the y to i	happy → happier
Long adjectives
2-syllable adjectives not ending in -y	modern, pleasant
all adjectives of 3 or more syllables	expensive, intellectual
Normal rule: use "more"	modern → more modern expensive → more expensive

Tip:
With some 2-syllable adjectives, we can use '-er' or 'more':

• quiet → quieter/more quiet
• clever → cleverer/more clever
• narrow → narrower/more narrow
• simple → simpler/more simple

Exception
The following adjectives have irregular forms:

• good → better
• well (healthy) → better
• bad → worse
• far → farther/further

Use of Comparative Adjectives

We use comparative adjectives when talking about 2 things (not 3 or 10 or 1,000,000 things, only 2 things).

Often, the comparative adjective is followed by "than".

Look at these examples:

• John is 1m80. He is tall. But Chris is 1m85. He is taller than John.
• America is big. But Russia is bigger.
• I want to have a more powerful computer.
• Is French more difficult than English?

If we talk about the two planets Earth and Mars, we can compare them as shown in the table below:

	Earth	Mars
Diameter (km)	12,760	6,790	Mars is smaller than Earth.
Distance from Sun (million km)	150	228	Mars is more distant from the Sun.
Length of day (hours)	24	25	A day on Mars is slightly longer than a day on Earth.
Moons	1	2	Mars has more moons than Earth.
Surface temperature (degrees Celcius)	22	-23	Mars is colder than Earth.

Tip:
Although we use comparative adjectives when talking about two things (not three or more things), in fact one or both of the things may be a group of things.

• Mt Everest is higher than all other mountains.

Here, we are talking about hundreds of mountains, but we are still comparing one thing (Mt Everest) to one other thing (all other mountains).

Adjective Order

There are 2 basic positions for adjectives:

1. before the noun
2. after certain verbs (be, become, get, seem, look, feel, sound, smell, taste)

		adj.	noun	verb	adj.
1	I like	big	cars.
2			My car	is	big.

Adjective Before Noun

We sometimes use more than one adjective before the noun:

• I like big black dogs.
• She was wearing a beautiful long red dress.

What is the correct order for two or more adjectives?

1. The general order is: opinion, fact:

• a nice French car (not a French nice car)

("Opinion" is what you think about something. "Fact" is what is definitely true about something.)

2. The normal order for fact adjectives is size, age, shape, colour, material, origin:

• a big, old, square, black, wooden Chinese table

3. Determiners usually come first, even though they are fact adjectives:

• articles (a, the)
• possessives (my, your...)
• demonstratives (this, that...)
• quantifiers (some, any, few, many...)
• numbers (one, two, three)

Here is an example with opinion and fact adjectives:

adjectives					noun
deter- miner	opinion	fact
		age	shape	colour
two	nice	old	round	red	candles

When we want to use two colour adjectives, we join them with "and":

• Many newspapers are black and white.
• She was wearing a long, blue and yellow dress.

Adjective After Certain Verbs

An adjective can come after some verbs, such as: be, become, feel, get, look, seem, smell, sound

Even when an adjective comes after the verb and not before a noun, it always refers to and qualifies the subject of the sentence, not the verb.

Look at the examples below: subject verb adjective

• Ram is English.
• Because she had to wait, she became impatient.
• Is it getting dark?
• The examination did not seem difficult.
• Your friend looks nice.
• This towel feels damp.
• That new film doesn't sound very interesting.
• Dinner smells good tonight.
• This milk tastes sour.
• It smells bad.

These verbs are "stative" verbs, which express a state or change of state, not "dynamic" verbs which express an action. Note that some verbs can be stative in one sense (she looks beautiful | it got hot), and dynamic in another (she looked at him | he got the money). The above examples do not include all stative verbs.

Note also that in the above structure (subject verb adjective), the adjective can qualify a pronoun since the subject may be a pronoun.

Adjectives

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. (By "noun" we include pronouns and noun phrases.)

An adjective "qualifies" or "modifies" a noun (a big dog).

Adjectives can be used before a noun (I like Chinese food) or after certain verbs (It is hard).

We can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young French lady).

Tip: It is sometimes said that the adjective is the enemy of the noun. This is because, very often, if we use the precise noun we don't need an adjective. For example, instead of saying "a large, impressive house" (2 adjectives + 1 noun) we could simply say "a mansion" (1 noun).

Determiners

Determiners are words like the, an, my, some. They are grammatically similar. They all come at the beginning of noun phrases, and usually we cannot use more than one determiner in the same noun phrase.

Articles:

• a, an, the

Possessives:

• my, your, his, her, our, their

Other determiners:

• each, every
• either, neither
• any, some, no
• much, many; more, most
• little, less, least
• few, fewer, fewest
• what, whatever; which, whichever
• both, half, all
• several
• enough

Determiners: A, An or The?

When do we say "the dog" and when do we say "a dog"? (On this page we talk only about singular, countable nouns.)

The and a/an are called "articles". We divide them into "definite" and "indefinite" like this:

Articles
Definite	Indefinite
the	a, an

We use "definite" to mean sure, certain. "Definite" is particular.

We use "indefinite" to mean not sure, not certain. "Indefinite" is general.

When we are talking about one thing in particular, we use the. When we are talking about one thing in general, we use a or an.

Think of the sky at night. In the sky we see 1 moon and millions of stars. So normally we would say:

• I saw the moon last night.
• I saw a star last night.

Look at these examples:

the	a, an
The capital of France is Paris. I have found the book that I lost. Have you cleaned the car? There are six eggs in the fridge. Please switch off the TV when you finish.	I was born in a town. John had an omelette for lunch. James Bond ordered a drink. We want to buy an umbrella. Have you got a pen?

Of course, often we can use the or a/an for the same word. It depends on the situation, not the word. Look at these examples:

• We want to buy an umbrella. (Any umbrella, not a particular umbrella.)
• Where is the umbrella? (We already have an umbrella. We are looking for our umbrella, a particular umbrella.)

Determiners: Each, Every

Each and every have similar but not always identical meanings.

Each = every one separately
Every = each, all

---

Sometimes, each and every have the same meaning:

• Prices go up each year.
• Prices go up every year.

---

But often they are not exactly the same.

Each expresses the idea of 'one by one'. It emphasizes individuality.

Every is half-way between each and all. It sees things or people as singular, but in a group or in general.

Consider the following:

• Every artist is sensitive.
• Each artist sees things differently.
• Every soldier saluted as the President arrived.
• The President gave each soldier a medal.

Each can be used in front of the verb:

• The soldiers each received a medal.

Each can be followed by 'of':

• The President spoke to each of the soldiers.
• He gave a medal to each of them.

---

Every cannot be used for 2 things. For 2 things, each can be used:

• He was carrying a suitcase in each hand.

Every is used to say how often something happens:

• There is a plane to Bangkok every day.
• The bus leaves every hour.

---

Determiners: Some, Any

Some = a little, a few or a small number or amount

Any = one, some or all

Usually, we use some in positive (+) sentences and any in negative (-) and question (?) sentences.

	some	any	example situation
+	I have some money.		I have $10.
-		I don't have any money.	I don't have $1 and I don't have $10 and I don't have $1,000,000. I have $0.
?		Do you have any money?	Do you have $1 or $10 or $1,000,000?

Tip: In general, we use something/anything and somebody/anybody in the same way as some/any.

Look at these examples:

• He needs some stamps.
• I must go. I have some homework to do.
• I'm thirsty. I want something to drink.
• I can see somebody coming.

• He doesn't need any stamps.
• I can stay. I don't have any homework to do.
• I'm not thirsty. I don't want anything to drink.
• I can't see anybody coming.

• Does he need any stamps?
• Do you have any homework to do?
• Do you want anything to drink?
• Can you see anybody coming?

We use any in a positive sentence when the real sense is negative.

• I refused to give them any money. (I did not give them any money)
• She finished the test without any difficulty. (she did not have any difficulty)

Sometimes we use some in a question, when we expect a positive YES answer. (We could say that it is not a real question, because we think we know the answer already.)

• Would you like some more tea?
• Could I have some sugar, please?

Nouns

It's not easy to describe a noun. In simple terms, nouns are "things" (and verbs are "actions"). Like food. Food (noun) is something you eat (verb). Or happiness. Happiness (noun) is something you want (verb). Or human being. A human being (noun) is something you are (verb).

What are Nouns?

The simple definition is: a person, place or thing. Here are some examples:

• person: man, woman, teacher, John, Mary
• place: home, office, town, countryside, America
• thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love, dog, monkey

The problem with this definition is that it does not explain why "love" is a noun but can also be a verb.

Another (more complicated) way of recognizing a noun is by its:

1. Ending
2. Position
3. Function

1. Noun Ending

There are certain word endings that show that a word is a noun, for example:

• -ity > nationality
• -ment > appointment
• -ness > happiness
• -ation > relation
• -hood > childhood

But this is not true for the word endings of all nouns. For example, the noun "spoonful" ends in -ful, but the adjective "careful" also ends in -ful.

2. Position in Sentence

We can often recognise a noun by its position in the sentence.

Nouns often come after a determiner (a determiner is a word like a, an, the, this, my, such):

• a relief
• an afternoon
• the doctor
• this word
• my house
• such stupidity

Nouns often come after one or more adjectives:

• a great relief
• a peaceful afternoon
• the tall, Indian doctor
• this difficult word
• my brown and white house
• such crass stupidity

3. Function in a Sentence

Nouns have certain functions (jobs) in a sentence, for example:

• subject of verb: Doctors work hard.
• object of verb: He likes coffee.
• subject and object of verb: Teachers teach students.

But the subject or object of a sentence is not always a noun. It could be a pronoun or a phrase. In the sentence "My doctor works hard", the noun is "doctor" but the subject is "My doctor".

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count. For example: "pen". We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or more pens. Here are some more countable nouns:

• dog, cat, animal, man, person
• bottle, box, litre
• coin, note, dollar
• cup, plate, fork
• table, chair, suitcase, bag

Countable nouns can be singular or plural:

• My dog is playing.
• My dogs are hungry.

We can use the indefinite article a/an with countable nouns:

• A dog is an animal.

When a countable noun is singular, we must use a word like a/the/my/this with it:

• I want an orange. (not I want orange.)
• Where is my bottle? (not Where is bottle?)

When a countable noun is plural, we can use it alone:

• I like oranges.
• Bottles can break.

We can use some and any with countable nouns:

• I've got some dollars.
• Have you got any pens?

We can use a few and many with countable nouns:

• I've got a few dollars.
• I haven't got many pens.

Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count "milk" itself. Here are some more uncountable nouns:

• music, art, love, happiness
• advice, information, news
• furniture, luggage
• rice, sugar, butter, water
• electricity, gas, power
• money, currency

We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular. We use a singular verb. For example:

• This news is very important.
• Your luggage looks heavy.

We do not usually use the indefinite article a/an with uncountable nouns. We cannot say "an information" or "a music". But we can say a something of:

• a piece of news
• a bottle of water
• a grain of rice

We can use some and any with uncountable nouns:

• I've got some money.
• Have you got any rice?

We can use a little and much with uncountable nouns:

• I've got a little money.
• I haven't got much rice.

Nouns that can be Countable and Uncountable

Sometimes, the same noun can be countable and uncountable, often with a change of meaning.

Countable		Uncountable
There are two hairs in my coffee!	hair	I don't have much hair.
There are two lights in our bedroom.	light	Close the curtain. There's too much light!
Shhhhh! I thought I heard a noise.	noise	It's difficult to work when there is too much noise.
Have you got a paper to read? (= newspaper)	paper	I want to draw a picture. Have you got some paper?
Our house has seven rooms.	room	Is there room for me to sit here?
We had a great time at the party.	time	Have you got time for a coffee?
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest works.	work	I have no money. I need work!

Verb Forms: Helping Verbs

Forms of Helping Verbs

All helping verbs are used with a main verb (either expressed or understood*). There are 2 groups of helping verbs:

• Primary helping verbs, used mainly to change the tense or voice of the main verb, and in making questions and negatives.
• Modal helping verbs, used to change the "mood" of the main verb.

Study the table below. It shows the principal forms and uses of helping verbs, and explains the differences between primary and modal helping verbs.

* Sometimes we make a sentence that has a helping verb and seems to have no main verb. In fact, the main verb is "understood". Look at the following examples:

• Question: Can you speak English? (The main verb speak is "expressed".)
• Answer: Yes, I can. (The main verb speak is not expressed. It is "understood" from the context. We understand: Yes, I can speak English.

But if somebody walked into the room and said "Hello. I can", we would understand nothing!

Helping Verbs
Primary		Modal
do	(to make simple tenses, and questions and negatives)	can	could
be	(to make continuous tenses, and the passive voice)	may	might
have	(to make perfect tenses)	will	would
		shall	should
		must
		ought (to)
"Do", "be" and "have" as helping verbs have exactly the same forms as when they are main verbs (except that as helping verbs they are never used in infinitive forms).		Modal helping verbs are invariable. They always have the same form.
Primary helping verbs are followed by the main verb in a particular form: do + V1 (base verb) be + -ing (present participle) have + V3 (past participle)		"Ought" is followed by the main verb in infinitive form. Other modal helping verbs are followed by the main verb in its base form (V1). ought + to... (infinitive) other modals + V1 (base verb)
"Do", "be" and "have" can also function as main verbs.		Modal helping verbs cannot function as main verbs.

Verb Forms: Main Verbs

English verbs come in several forms. For example, the verb to sing can be: to sing, sing, sang, sung, singing or sings. This is a total of 6 forms. Not many, considering that some languages (French, for example) have more than 30 forms for an individual verb. English tenses may be quite complicated, but the forms that we use to make the tenses are actually very simple! With the exception of the verb to be, English main verbs have only 4, 5 or 6 forms. To be has 9 forms. Do not confuse verb forms with tenses. We use the different verb forms to make the tenses, but they are not the same thing.

Forms of Main Verbs

Main verbs (except the verb "be") have only 4, 5 or 6 forms. "Be" has 9 forms.

		V1	V2	V3
	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple, 3rd person singular
regular	(to) work	work	worked	worked	working	works
irregular	(to) sing (to) make (to) cut	sing make cut	sang made cut	sung made cut	singing making cutting	sings makes cuts
	(to) do* (to) have*	do have	did had	done had	doing having	does has
	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple
	(to) be*	be	was, were	been	being	am, are, is

In the above examples:

• to cut has 4 forms: to cut, cut, cutting, cuts
• to work has 5 forms: to work, work, worked, working, works
• to sing has 6 forms: to sing, sing, sang, sung, singing, sings
• to be has 9 forms: to be, be, was, were, been, being, am, is, are

The infinitive can be with or without to. For example, to sing and sing are both infinitives. We often call the infinitive without to the "bare infinitive".

At school, students usually learn by heart the base, past simple and past participlepresent participle3rd person singular present simple by heart - for another very simple reason: they never change. The present participle is always made by adding "-ing" to the base, and the 3rd person singular present simple is always made by adding "s" to the base (though there are some variations in spelling). (sometimes called V1, V2, V3, meaning Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3) for the irregular verbs. They may spend many hours chanting: sing, sang, sung; go, went, gone; have, had, had; etc. They do not learn these for the regular verbs because the past simple and past participle are always the same: they are formed by adding "-ed" to the base. They do not learn the and

* Note that "do", "have" and "be" also function as helping or auxiliary verbs, with exactly the same forms (except that as helping verbs they are never in infinitive form).

Example Sentences

These example sentences use main verbs in different forms.

Infinitive

• I want to work
• He has to sing.
• This exercise is easy to do.
• Let him have one.
• To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Base - Imperative

• Work well!
• Make this.
• Have a nice day.
• Be quiet!

Base - Present simple
(except 3rd person singular)

• I work in Kuala Lumpur.
• You sing well.
• They have a lot of money.

Base - After modal auxiliary verbs

• I can work tomorrow.
• You must sing louder.
• They might do it.
• You could be right.

Past simple

• I worked yesterday.
• She cut his hair last week.
• They had a good time.
• They were surprised, but I was not.

Past participle

• I have worked here for five years.
• He needs a folder made of plastic.
• It is done like this.
• I have never been so happy.

Present participle

• I am working.
• Singing well is not easy.
• Having finished, he went home.
• You are being silly!

3rd person singular, present simple

• He works in Kuala Lumpur.
• She sings well.
• She has a lot of money.
• It is Vietnamese.

What are verbs

The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!" You cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.

Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true. Many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example, words like run, fight, do and work all convey action.

But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem and belong all convey state.

A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "Halim speaks English", Halim is the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:

• action (Lokman plays football.)
• state (Salbiah seems kind.)

There is something very special about verbs in English. Most other words (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change in form. For example, the verb to work has five forms:

• to work, work, works, worked, working

Of course, this is still very few forms compared to some languages which may have thirty or more forms for a single verb.

Verb Classification

We divide verbs into two broad classifications:

1. Helping Verbs

Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:

• I can.
• People must.
• The Earth will.

Do you understand anything? Has this person communicated anything to you? Probably not! That's because these verbs are helping verbs and have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the main verb. (The sentences in the above examples are therefore incomplete. They need at least a main verb to complete them.) There are only about 15 helping verbs.

2. Main Verbs

Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says:

• I teach.
• People eat.
• The Earth rotates.

Do you understand something? Has this person communicated something to you? Probably yes! Not a lot, but something. That's because these verbs are main verbs and have meaning on their own. They tell us something. Of course, there are thousands of main verbs.

In the following table we see example sentences with helping verbs and main verbs. Notice that all of these sentences have a main verb. Only some of them have a helping verb.

	helping verb		main verb
Amin			likes	coffee.
You			lied	to me.
They			are	happy.
The children	are		playing.
We	must		go	now.
I	do	not	want	any.

Helping verbs and main verbs can be further sub-divided.

Helping verbs have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of a sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verb. They "help" the main verb (which has the real meaning). There are only about 15 helping verbs in English, and we divide them into two basic groups:

Primary helping verbs (3 verbs)

These are the verbs be, do, and have. Note that we can use these three verbs as helping verbs or as main verbs. On this page we talk about them as helping verbs. We use them in the following cases:

• be
  • to make continuous tenses (He is watching TV.)
  • to make the passive (Small fish are eaten by big fish.)
  
  
  
• have
  • to make perfect tenses (I have finished my homework.)
  
  
  
• do
  • to make negatives (I do not like you.)
  • to ask questions (Do you want some coffee?)
  • to show emphasis (I do want you to pass your exam.)
  • to stand for a main verb in some constructions (He speaks faster than she does.)

Modal helping verbs (10 verbs)

We use modal helping verbs to "modify" the meaning of the main verb in some way. A modal helping verb expresses necessity or possibility, and changes the main verb in that sense. These are the modal verbs:

• can, could
• may, might
• will, would,
• shall, should
• must
• ought to

Here are examples using modal verbs:

• I can't speak Chinese.
• Yatie may arrive late.
• Would you like a cup of coffee?
• You should see a doctor.
• I really must go now.

Main Verbs

Main verbs are also called "lexical verbs".

Main verbs have meaning on their own (unlike helping verbs). There are thousands of main verbs, and we can classify them in several ways:

Transitive and intransitive verbs

A transitive verb takes a direct object: Somebody killed the President. An intransitive verb does not have a direct object: He died. Many verbs, like speak, can be transitive or intransitive. Look at these examples:

transitive:

• I saw an elephant.
• We are watching TV.
• He speaks English.

intransitive:

• He has arrived.
• Haziqah goes to school.
• She speaks fast.

Linking verbs

A linking verb does not have much meaning in itself. It "links" the subject to what is said about the subject. Usually, a linking verb shows equality (=) or a change to a different state or place (>). Linking verbs are always intransitive (but not all intransitive verbs are linking verbs).

• Fatin is a teacher. (Fatin = teacher)
• Zizi is beautiful. (Zizi = beautiful)
• That sounds interesting. (that = interesting)
• The sky became dark. (the sky > dark)
• The bread has gone bad. (bread > bad)

Dynamic and stative verbs

Some verbs describe action. They are called "dynamic", and can be used with continuous tenses. Other verbs describe state (non-action, a situation). They are called "stative", and cannot normally be used with continuous tenses (though some of them can be used with continuous tenses with a change in meaning).

dynamic verbs (examples):

• hit, explode, fight, run, go

stative verbs (examples):

• be
• like, love, prefer, wish
• impress, please, surprise
• hear, see, sound
• belong to, consist of, contain, include, need
• appear, resemble, seem

Regular and irregular verbs

This is more a question of vocabulary than of grammar. The only real difference between regular and irregular verbs is that they have different endings for their past tense and past participle forms. For regular verbs, the past tense ending and past participle ending is always the same: -ed. For irregular verbs, the past tense ending and the past participle ending is variable, so it is necessary to learn them by heart.

regular verbs: base, past tense, past participle

• look, looked, looked
• work, worked, worked

irregular verbs: base, past tense, past participle

• buy, bought, bought
• cut, cut, cut
• do, did, done

Here are lists of regular verbs and irregular verbs.

One way to think of regular and irregular verbs is like this: all verbs are irregular and the so-called regular verbs are simply one very large group of irregular verbs.

Often the above divisions can be mixed. For example, one verb could be irregular, transitive and dynamic; another verb could be regular, transitive and stative.