Past participle in English
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Sign up for freeIn this chapter the English past participle will be explained. The past participle is used to form many tenses.
Lesson outline
Hide- 1.How to form the English past participle?
- 1.1.Past participle of regular verbs
- 1.2.Past participle of irregular verbs
- 2.Usage of the English past participle
- 3.List of English past participles
- 4.Exercises
- 4.1.Practice the English past participle (regular verbs)
- 4.2.Practice the English past participle (irregular verbs)
- 4.3.Fill in the English past participle
How to form the English past participle?
The past participles in English are formed from verbs. How the past participle is formed, depends on whether the verb is regular or irregular.
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Belinda W. 
Giulio V. 
May W. 
Sadaf C. 
Daniel S. 
Spyros K. 
Tabea D.
Arjie B. 
Agnese B.
Charmaine C. 
1) Past participle of regular verbs
To form the past participle of regular verbs, you have to add '-d' or '-ed' to the stem of the verb.
Stem of the verb + '-d' / '-ed'
Examples:
- to wait - waited
- to book - booked
- to learn - learned
2) Past participle of irregular verbs
The past participles of irregular verbs do not follow a certain pattern. These forms have to be memorized.
Examples:
- to eat - eaten
- to have - had
- to win - won
Usage of the English past participle
The past participle of English verbs is used in tenses. For example to form the present perfect tense, the past perfect tense and the future perfect tense. Besides that past participles can be used as adjectives in participle phrases.
| Situation | Example |
|---|---|
| The formation of the present perfect tense. |
|
| The formation of the past perfect tense. |
|
| The formation of the future perfect tense. |
|
| The past participle as an adjective in participle phrases. These participle phrases describes something in the main clause. |
|
List of English past participles
The table below shows some examples of the regular and irregular past participles in English.
| Verb | Past participle | Example |
|---|---|---|
| to eat | eaten | I had eaten salad before I went to the party. |
| to work | worked | You have worked at a pharmacy. |
| to become | become | She has become a doctor. |
| to break | broken | The broken window got fixed yesterday. |
| to buy | bought | I have bought fresh flowers at the market this morning. |
| to finish | finished | We will have finished the project before he comes back. |
| to catch | caught | Martina caught the ball during the game. |
| to freeze | frozen | He will be frozen when he gets home from playing in the snow. |
| to study | studied | Axel had already studied the Dutch language when he came to the Netherlands. |
| to grow | grown | She is a grown woman now. |
| to burn | burned | The burned food tasted horrible. |
| to play | played | He has played the piano yesterday. |
| to hide | hid/hidden | They have hid the treasure in the woods. |
| to pay | paid | We will have paid our debts by the end of this month. |
| to speak | spoken | She had spoken about him, before he entered the room. |
Exercises
- Practice the English past participle (regular verbs)
- Practice the English past participle (irregular verbs)
- Fill in the English past participle
Practice the English past participle (regular verbs)
Practice the English past participle (irregular verbs)
Fill in the English past participle
Exercises
- Practice the English past participle (regular verbs)
- Practice the English past participle (irregular verbs)
- Fill in the English past participle