Lesson · Tense Tables · A table you can build

Five Forms Make Twelve

A tense table has twelve boxes. Books print them and ask you to learn them. You do not have to. Every box is built from five forms of the verb, and four of those five follow rules you can state in one line each. This lesson gives you the rules and a table that fills itself for any verb you type.

Open the interactive lesson Practice

base walk he, she, it walks -ing form walking past walked after have walked two boxes are a form on its own ten are a form with have, be or will in front

The five forms, and what fills the table

Core ideas

What this lesson establishes

Three ideas carry the whole lesson.

Twelve boxes, but not twelve things to learn

The table has three times down the side and four shapes across the top. That makes twelve boxes. But you never learn twelve forms of a verb, because ten of the boxes are the same few forms with have, be or will placed in front of them, and the other two are a form on its own. Learn five forms and you can write any box.

Four of the five follow a rule

Only the base form has to be learned. The other four are made from it: add -s, add -ing, add -ed. What makes English feel hard is that each rule has a small change for certain endings, and those changes are what this lesson states exactly.

A rule is a claim, and a claim can be checked

Anyone can give you a rule. The question is how often it is right. The rules in this lesson are the ones the lab runs, and the next lesson, “Scoring a Rule on 1,210 Real Verbs”, runs them over a printed list and counts. Here you only need to know that each one is a rule you can state and test, not a feeling about English.

The material

One verb, five forms, four boxes

Take walk. Write its five forms, then build four of the twelve boxes from them. The lab does the same for any verb you type.

Open any book for learners and you will find a page with twelve boxes on it. Three times: now, before, later. Four shapes for each. Every box has a name, and the book asks you to learn the names and the forms that go in them.

You do not have to do that, and this lesson is about why.

The five forms

A verb in English has five forms. For walk they are walk, walks, walking, walked, and the form used after have, which for this verb is also walked. One verb has more: be has eight (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been), and the course called Irregular Verbs sets it apart from every other verb. The small helping words, will among them, have fewer, and they only ever stand in front.

Those five fill all twelve boxes. Two of the boxes, walk and walked, are a form on its own. The other ten are simply one of these forms with a small word in front of it. Have gives you the shape that looks back from now. Be with the -ing form gives you the shape that is still going on. Will moves the whole thing later. That is the entire table.

Simple: the verb on its own, or with will. She walks. She walked. She will walk.
Progressive: be and the -ing form. She is walking. She was walking. She will be walking.
Perfect: have and the form after have. She has walked. She had walked. She will have walked.
Perfect progressive: have, been and the -ing form. She has been walking. She had been walking. She will have been walking.

The rules that make four of the five

You learn the base form when you learn the word. The other four come from rules, and here they are, exactly as the lab runs them.

For he, she or it, add -s. After a hissing sound, add -es: passes, wishes, watches. After a consonant and -y, the -y becomes -ies: carries. After a consonant and -o, add -es as well: goes.
For the -ing form, add -ing, dropping a silent -e first: hope, hoping. A verb ending -ie becomes -ying: lie, lying. A verb ending -ee, -oe or -ye keeps its -e: see, seeing.
For the past, add -ed. After a silent -e only -d is needed, hope, hoped, and the -y change is the same: carry, carried.
If the word ends consonant, vowel, consonant, the last letter is not w, x or y, and the last part is the strong part, double that last letter before -ing and -ed: stop, stopping, stopped. Nothing ever doubles before -s.

That last rule is the only one needing the sound of the word and not only its letters. Stop is one part, so the last part is the strong part, and it doubles: stopping. Listen has two parts and the strong one is the first, so nothing doubles: listening. The lesson “When the Last Letter Doubles” takes this rule apart on its own.

The lab applies all four, and it prints the one that fired beside every answer. Type a verb, read the three forms, then read the reason. If you had a different answer, find which rule you used and which one the lab used. The list of 1,210 verbs under the lab is the one the next lesson, “Scoring a Rule on 1,210 Real Verbs”, scores these rules on, with the words they miss.

Interactive

Twelve cells, five rules, and the verb you typed

Every cell is formed on the page by the rule named beside it

he / she / itwalks

-ing formwalking

past formwalked

rule that firednothing special

time	simple	progressive	perfect	perfect progressive

The rules scored on every regular verb in the printed list below.

rule—

right—

share right—

missed—

the words it missed—

Type any verb and watch the table fill

Nothing here is looked up except the six verbs the page marks irregular. The three forms at the top are made by the rules this lesson states, and the box beside them names the rule that fired, so you can check the answer against the reason for it. Type a verb that is not in the list and the same rules run, with one gap: the page cannot hear a word it does not carry, so for a new verb it treats the last part as the strong part. The menu under Score a rule on the list counts how often a rule is right, and the next lesson, “Scoring a Rule on 1,210 Real Verbs”, shows what it prints.

A verb or one that shows a rule Score a rule on the list List

Method

Building a box

To write any box of the table, do this.

Start from the base form

The form you would find in a word list. This is the one form you have to learn; the rest are made from it.

Make the other four forms

Add -s, -ing and -ed by the rules below, or look the verb up if it is one of the few that break them. The lab names the rule it used beside each form.

Choose the time you mean

Now, before, or later. This picks the row of the table.

Put the small word in front

Have to look back, be with the -ing form for something still going on, will to move it later. This picks the column, and the box is written.

Check yourself

Score 0 / 0

Choose the answer you can justify.

walk, and four of its twelve boxes

The five forms come first. Then each box is one form with a small word in front, or no small word at all.

walk the base walks he, she, it walking the -ing form walked the past, and the form after have she walks a form on its own she is walking be + the -ing form she has walked have + the form after have she has been walking have + been + the -ing form

The last box has two small words in front. Has been is have and be together, and walking is the -ing form behind them. Nothing new was learned: walking was already one of the five forms.

Try stop, carry and hope in the lab. The five forms change, stopping, carries, hoping, and the box beside them says which rule did it. The twelve boxes do not change at all. Have, be and will have forms of their own, has, was, been, and the course called Helping Verbs takes those one at a time.

Common mistakes

Treating the twelve boxes as twelve things to learnTwelve boxes for every verb is a very large number of things to hold. Five forms and four rules is a small one, and it works on a verb you have never met.

Doubling the last letter when the strong part is earlyStop becomes stopping, but listen does not become listenning. The letter only doubles when the last part of the word is the strong part, which is why the rule needs the sound and not only the letters.

Putting -s or -ed on the verb behind willAfter will the verb is the base form: she will walk, not she will walks. After have it is the form after have: she has walked. The small word decides which form follows it.

Check your understanding

✓

Finish when you can build the full table for a verb you have never seen, and name the rule that made each form.

You should be able to take any regular verb, write its five forms by rule, say which of the four rules fired and why, and fill all twelve boxes by placing have, be and will in front of those forms.

Note: Five forms and four rules is a small thing to hold. Twelve boxes for every verb you meet is a very large one.