Parts of Speech: Verbs

Instructor: Ganesh

Overview

• Types of verbs in English
• Avoiding common mistakes with verbs
• Key topics: state and action verbs, main and helping verbs, regular and irregular verbs, transitive and intransitive verbs

What is a Verb?

• A word that shows an action or a state (situation)
• Two main types: state verbs and action verbs
  • State Verbs: Express a situation (e.g., be, have, think, like, own)
  • Action Verbs: Express physical activities (e.g., kick, shout, run, climb, stand, sit, grow)

Important Rule

• State verbs cannot be used in -ing forms.
  • Correct: "The children are playing in the park."
  • Incorrect: "Julia is liking chocolate ice cream."

Main and Helping (Auxiliary) Verbs

• A verb in a sentence can be a main verb or a helping verb.
• Helping Verbs: be, do, have
  • Example: "Luciano is working now."
    • Main verb: working
    • Helping verb: is (shows tense)
  • Functions: Indicate tense, form negatives, ask questions
    • Example: "Luciano isn't working now" (negative), "Is Luciano working now?" (question)
• Do and Have can also be helping verbs
  • Example: "I don't play golf every weekend."
  • Example: "We have visited the UK four times."
    • Main verb: visited
    • Helping verb: have (indicates life experience, not single event)
• Modal Verbs: can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must
  • Express mood, indicate speaker's attitude
  • Examples:
    • "The Patriots might win the Super Bowl this year." (possibility)
    • "My sister can play the guitar." (ability)
    • "You mustn't smoke here." (permission)

Regular and Irregular Verbs

• Verbs have tenses: past, present, future
• Verb forms: infinitive (base), present tense, past tense, past participle, -ing (continuous)
• Regular Verbs: Past and past participle forms end with -ed
  • Example: cook, cooked, cooked, cooking
• Irregular Verbs: No consistent rule for past and past participle forms
  • Example: go, went, gone
  • Example: be, am/is/are, was/were, been
  • Example: read, read (pronounced 'red'), read
• Learning Tip: Memorize irregular verbs through practice and experience

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

• Transitive Verbs: Require an object
  • Example: "Duncan kicked the ball." (object: the ball)
  • Common transitive verbs: hit, give, carry, climb, make, kiss, take
• Intransitive Verbs: Do not require an object
  • Example: "The old man laughed loudly." (no object)
  • Common intransitive verbs: live, die, laugh, cry, run, sleep, sit, stand

Common Mistake

• Leaving out objects with transitive verbs
  • Incorrect: "The thief climbed and then escaped."
  • Correct: "The thief climbed over the wall and then escaped."

Recap

1. State and Action Verbs
   • No -ing forms with state verbs
2. Main and Helping Verbs
   • Be, do, have often used as helping verbs
   • Modals express mood
3. Regular and Irregular Verbs
   • Irregular verbs' past forms must be learned
4. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
   • Transitive verbs require objects; intransitive verbs do not

Final Tip

• Avoid the mistake of omitting objects with transitive verbs.

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Hope you enjoyed this lesson! See you in the next one.