While writing a sentence in English, you get encountered with the ‘action words’ that describe the action of the subject within a sentence. These words are known as verbs.
Verbs, together with nouns, are the primary components that indicate what is happening in the sentence. Tell me if you can figure out what is happening in the following sentence: “The dog the ball.” See? In this example, only two nouns are highlighted next to each other which can’t tell a story. However, by just adding one word “chased” between them, you will be able to tell the story. For example: “The dog chased the ball.” Here ‘chased’ is the verb.
Understanding verbs can feel overwhelming, given the number of tenses, types, and additional grammatical rules. Hence, with this comprehensive guide we are going to provide a detailed breakdown of verbs, with simple examples.
What is a Verb?
Let’s understand the basics first: What is a verb? A verb is a word that indicates action , an event or a state of being. In simple words, verbs help you understand what is happening in the sentence. It can be an action that someone or something is doing, an occurrence that is taking place, or a state of being that something is in.
Here are few examples:
Action: John runs every evening.
Occurrence: The weather changed after it rained yesterday.
State of being: He always seems tired.
You can see that not all verbs involve movement. For example, the verb ‘seems’ used in the line above is not an action, but it still tells us something about the subject in the sentence. This is the reason why verbs are such a broad category and are split up into different types.
Remember: All sentences need a verb to be complete. Even exclamations such as “Stop!” are still sentences with a verb in them.
How to Identify a Verb in a Sentence?
Before you learn about the various types of verbs, it is important to know how to identify them in a sentence. Below are three methods that can help you with determining verbs.
Question about the subject’s action in the sentence: For example, in the sentence “She danced with her partner” the question would be “what did she do?” and the answer would be the verb “danced”.
Find the word that changes form based on tense: For instance, some verbs have different forms depending on the time of the action, like ‘dance’ becomes ‘danced’ or ‘dancing’. They are different from nouns and adjectives, which do not have tense-based changes.
Remove the verb to see if the sentence makes sense: You can remove the word that you guess as the verb, and see if it affects the sentence’s grammatical structure. As verbs hold sentences together, their removal often results in a sentence that does not make sense.
These are some of the easiest ways of identifying a verb in a sentence. Once you understand how to spot a verb easily in the sentence, you will be able to determine the verb’s categories.
Action Verbs vs. Linking Verbs
This is the most significant and initial category you will come across when studying about verbs. These two types of verbs work completely in different ways.
Action Verbs: These types of verbs highlight that the subject within the sentence is doing some sort of action. The action can either be physical or mental.
For example:
- Physical Action: She sings jazz every week at the restaurant.
- Mental Action: He believes in God.
Linking verbs: These verbs on the other hand, do not show any type of action at all, as they link the subject to a word or phrase that describes or identifies the subject. These verbs are also called “equal” verbs. The most common linking verb is ‘to be’ in its various forms (is, am, was, were, are, being, been). However, there are others too such as, seem, become, appear, feel, look and sound.
For example:
- The sushi is delicious.
- He seems confident.
- They became friends.
A quick test for identifying a linking verb is to see if you can replace the verb with a form of ‘is’ or ‘equals’. If the sentence still makes sense, then it is a linking verb. For example, “she seems confident” works as “she is confident”. However, “she writes confident” does not make sense, which proves that ‘writes’ is an action verb.
One more tricky detail: the thing about verbs is that some of them can act as both action and linking verbs. How can you tell the difference? It can be hard, but there are some clues.
Look at these two sentences:
- She looked at the photograph.
- She looked tired.
In the first sentence, ‘looked’ is an action verb. She did the action of looking at the photo. In the second sentence, ‘looked’ is the linking verb. It connects the subject ‘she’ to the description or state of being ‘tired’. The context of the sentence will often tell you what kind of verb it is.
Helping (Auxiliary) Verbs and Modal Verbs
Sometimes you need more than a main verb to convey just what you want to say. That’s why in English Grammar, there are helping verbs, also called auxiliary verbs, which comes in handy. Here are some examples of helping verbs:
The three most common helping verbs are forms of be, have, and do:
- He is studying for his competitive entrance exam.
- They have finished the presentation.
- She does enjoy hiking.
Helping verbs are usually paired with the main verb, and they often give more information about the main verb. For example, the phrase ‘is studying’ tells us two things: that the action of studying is taking place and it’s happening right now.
The modal verbs in English grammar consist of the helping verb that indicate necessity, possibility, permission, or ability. The most common are can, could, must, shall, should, may, might, will and would.
For example:
- Necessity: You must fill out the form by Thursday.
- Possibility: She might come with us.
- Ability: She can swim.
Consider modals as one special category of helping verbs. Unlike regular helping verbs, they do not change form to agree with the subject. They are always the same, which makes them easy to learn and use. For instance, you can always write “he can” but never “he cans”. You just have to memorize the different modal words for each category.
Verb Tenses: Past, Present, and Future
Tense indicates when an action is performed. We all know that English has three different tenses that describe when the action of a verb occurs, which are past, present and future. Each of these three forms of verbs also has continuous and perfect aspects.
| Tense | Simple | Continuous | Perfect |
| Past | He walked to his college. | He was walking to his college. | He had walked to his college. |
| Present | He walks to school. | He is walking to school. | He has walked to school. |
| Future | He will walk to school. | He will be walking to school. | He will have walked to school. |
Here’s a quick recall the functions of each variation:
- Without providing further information, the simple tense expresses just the fact about when something occurs.
- The continuous tense, often known as the progressive tense, depicts an ongoing action.
- An activity that is finished in relation to another point in the time is shown in the perfect tense.
Unintentionally changing the tenses midway through a phrase or paragraph, like beginning in the past and drifting into the present, is a typical error made by writers. Your writing will be considerably easier to read if you maintain a consistent tense unless there is a compelling reason to change it.
Regular vs. Irregular Verbs
Verbs can also be grouped based on the ways their past tense forms.
Regular verbs have a certain pattern, which is simply adding “ed” to the base form.
For example:
- Talk – Talked
- Play – Played
- Watch – Watched
On the other hand, irregular verbs do not follow a regular pattern when forming their past tense. Therefore, each verb has to be memorized separately since there is no specific rule that has been applied to generate their past tense forms.
- Go – Went
- Eat – Ate
- See – Saw
Irregular verbs are usually the most common verbs or frequent verbs which is why they are considered difficult to learn. They appear often and it takes a long time to master them since each verb has a different pattern. However, in practice, most of these verbs have been mastered intuitively by people who are native English speakers since they are commonly observed. In other words, you most probably already know these verbs but have never paid specific attention to learning them since you used them subconsciously.
Transitive Verbs vs. Intransitive Verbs
The difference in this category can seem very subtle, but, in reality, that is not the case. It only depends on whether a verb needs an object to complete its meaning.
A transitive verb is one that requires an object to express a thought correctly.
For example:
- She baked a cake. The transitive verb here is baked. Without the object of the sentence, we would not be able to understand what exactly she did.
- He read the book. In turn, the verb here is read , and without the object, the meaning of the sentence would not be clear.
In contrast, an intransitive verb does not require an object to complete the sense of a sentence.
For example:
- He slept.
- He arrived late.
In these examples, you can clearly see that the meaning of the sentences is clear even without objects after the verbs. However, some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive verbs at the same time:
- She sang a rock song. (Transitive verb)
- She sang. (Intransitive verb)
If you are unsure whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, simply look at whether the sentence needs an object to complete the sentence. If it does, then it is a transitive verb. However, if the sentence makes complete sense without an object after the verb, then it is an intransitive verb.
Subject-Verb Agreement: Common Mistakes To Avoid
Subject-verb agreement is a grammatical rule that requires the verb to correspond with the subject in number. For example singular subjects take singular verbs, and plural subjects take plural verbs.
Singular – He runs every day.
Plural – They run every day.
While it seems like a simple enough concept, there are certain cases that can be particularly challenging for the would-be writer.
Collective nouns: These nouns are names that refer to a group of people or things, but they are treated as singular in number, because they refer to a single group.
For example: Their team is playing tonight. (not ‘are’)
Compound subjects: They are joined by and, these subjects usually take a plural verb.
For example: John and David are attending the award show.
However, if the compound subject is joined by or or nor , the verb agrees with whichever subject is closer to it in the sentence.
- Neither the teacher nor the students were informed about the meeting.
- Neither the students nor the manager were informed about the meeting.
Words or phrases that intervene between the subject and the verb.
For example: The box of chocolates is on the table.
Quick tip: Try crossing out any descriptor phrases in between the subject and verb; the subject and verb should still agree even when taken down to their most basic form.
Quick Reference: Common Irregular Verbs
As you can see from above, irregular verbs do not follow any predictable patterns. To ensure that you are using the correct form of the verb, it is wise to keep a small reference list at hand.
| Base Form | Past Tense | Past Participle |
| Bring | Brought | Brought |
| Be | Was/Were | Been |
| Break | Broke | Broken |
| Do | Did | Done |
| Have | Had | Had |
| Know | Knew | Known |
| See | Saw | Seen |
| Write | Wrote | Written |
| Go | Went | Gone |
| Come | Came | Come |
| Buy | Bought | Bought |
| Take | Took | Taken |
You can keep this list bookmarked for quick reference to the most common irregular verbs. With time and practice, common irregular verbs will become more familiar to you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Verbs
- What is a verb?
A verb is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being. A verb is necessary for every complete sentence, whether it describes an occurrence, like run, or a state, like seem.
- What is the difference between an action and a linking verb?
The action verb describes what the subject is doing, and the linking verb links the subject to a word that describes it or tells more about it.
- What are helping verbs?
The helping verbs, also known as auxiliary verbs, are words that are used with a main verb to describe an action. The most common helping verbs are ‘is, have, will, and can’.
- What is the difference between regular and irregular verbs?
Regular verbs form their past tense by adding -ed, like walked, while irregular verbs change form in unpredictable ways, like go becoming went or eat becoming ate.
- What is subject-verb agreement?
Subject-verb agreement means the verb in a sentence must match the number of its subject, so a singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb, as in she runs versus they run.
