1
Build any verb's table from five forms
The twelve boxes written out from the base form, with have, be and will doing the work that ten of them need.
Course · English
Tense Tables
A book gives you twelve boxes and asks you to learn them. This course gives you five forms and four rules that build all twelve, then runs those rules over 1,210 real verbs in your browser and prints how often they are right and every word they miss. It ends with the sound of the two endings, which the spelling hides.
five forms fill twelve boxes
base he, she, it -ing past after have
have + past form looks back
be + -ing form still going on
will + base later
-s 99.92% -ing 99.34% -ed 99.26%
What this course is about
- Subject
- English
- Lessons
- 4
- Format
- Interactive
Overview
What you will be able to do
By the end you can build the full table for a verb you have never seen, say which rule made each form, and name the cases where the rules fail.
2
Say which rule made a form, not just what the form is
Each ending named as it is applied — the hiss rule, the -y rule, the silent -e, the doubling rule and the strong part it depends on.
3
Quote a hit rate, and the misses, for every rule you use
99.92% for -s, 99.34% for -ing, 99.26% for the past, measured on the page against 1,210 verbs, with each word the rule misses printed beside it.
4
Tell a rule that helps from one that only sounds right
The -f to -ves rule, added for good reasons, made the results worse. The count found it; the ear did not.
5
Tell a spelling difference from a mistake
Travelling and traveling are both right. Eleven of the eighteen words the doubling rule still misses are this, and three words it once seemed to miss were mistakes in the list itself.
6
Say how -ed and -s are said
From the last sound of the verb: t, d or id for the past, s, z or iz for the other. The rule is right for 1111 of 1118 past forms and 1187 of 1189 forms with -s.
Lessons
4 lessons
The forms first, because every later lesson puts them behind a small word. Then the rules scored on every verb they can touch, the one rule that needs the strong part of the word, and last the sounds of the two endings.
Five Forms Make TwelveLearn five forms of a verb and the twelve boxes fill themselves.Not marked
Scoring a Rule on 1,210 Real VerbsA rule you cannot count is an opinion; this one is counted, and every miss is printed.Not marked
When the Last Letter DoublesMost books give you half this rule, and half of it is only a guess.Not marked
How -ed and -s Are SaidTwo endings, three sounds each, and the last sound of the verb picks the one.Not marked
Recommended background
No course on this site comes before this one. The arithmetic never goes past counting and working out a share, and every word list a lab uses is printed on the page you are reading.
Practice suggestions
Say the rule out loud before you look at the answer. The lab names the rule beside every form it makes, so you can check whether you had the right reason and not only the right word.
Type verbs that are not in the list. The rules run on anything, and the ones that go wrong are more useful to you than the ones that go right.
Read the misses. Each list of missed words is short enough to learn directly, and that is the whole saving: a rule plus a short list beats a long list.
What it does not cover
When to choose one box over another. That is a question about meaning, and no count on this page answers it. The labs show how to build every box and how often the rules that build it are right; choosing between boxes is the work of reading and being corrected, which a page cannot do for you.
Sound beyond the two endings. This course says how -ed and -s are said and where the doubling rule needs the strong part. How spellings turn into sounds, where the strong part falls and how fast speech squashes words are the courses called Spelling to Sound, Word Stress and Listening.
Every irregular verb in English. The second course takes the ones that appear often enough to matter and says plainly how far down the list it goes.
Rare and old forms. Shall as a plain future and the subjunctive are named where they turn up in the printed passages and otherwise left alone.