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While nouns describe the who and what of the sentence, verbs describe the action.
The Chihuahua sauntered down the lane.
The chef simmers the succotash.
He gave her his all.
Verbs can be singular or plural, so we choose the verb that goes with the subject’s number. Note that collective nouns in the subject (such as money below) are usually treated as if they were singular nouns and are given singular verbs.
Singular Noun and Verb
The tiger shark jumps.
She eats a banana every morning.
Money makes the world go around.
The murder of crows caws portentously.
Plural Noun and Verb
Sara and Tony contemplate which mango would taste best.
Cynics wonder.
They munch their way through a wonderful picnic.
Collective nouns may be treated as plurals when the individuals behave independently rather than as a group.
My family live in different towns near Vermillionville.
The jury are deadlocked
An intransitive verb does not need a direct object.
The lightning flashed.
She spoke
A transitive verb requires a direct object to complete its meaning.
He caught the first flight to Kenya.
Her imagination took her away.
A linking verb links subject and subject complement.
She was tired.
The musician turned white.
The music became his obsession.
A helping verb helps a verb form a certain tense or distinction and is placed before the verb it helps. Helping verbs include be, can, do, have, and will and are also called auxiliary verbs.
I could eat another chocolate truffle, if you insist.
They’ll never know how lucky they were.
I am knitting your present right now.
Besides being singular or plural, verbs can also be active or passive. An active verb emphasizes the subject, and the subject does the action of the verb. A passive verb emphasizes the direct object or the verb itself, and the subject receives the action of the verb. Notice that in some cases, passive sentences lack the clarity of their active counterparts.
| Active Voice | Passive Voice |
| Greg pulled the wagon. | The wagon was pulled by Greg. |
| The bulldog’s walk painted a picture of grace and ease. | A picture of grace and ease was painted by the bulldog’s walk. |
| She found her truest self. | Her truest self was found by her. |
As you can see, active voice and passive voice contribute to verb form. Besides depending on verb voice, verb tense depends on time, continuation, and when the action happened in relation to other events.
Past tense verbs describe a specific time in the past.
Active: I walked the dog.
Passive: The dog was walked by me.
Past perfect verbs describe an action that occurred in the past before another event in the past.
Active : That day, I had walked the dog before I fed the cat.
Passive : That day, the dog had been walked by me before I fed the cat.
Past progressive verbs describe an action occurring and continuing to occur in the past, often at the same time something else happened.
Active: I was walking the dog when I remembered the delight of learning grammar.
Passive : The dog was being walked by me when I remembered the delight of learning grammar.
Past perfect progressive tense verbs describe a continuing action in the past that occurred before another event in the past. Notice that the definition for past perfect progressive looks a bit like the definitions for past perfect and past progressive combined.
Active : I had been walking the dog when I had a bright idea.
Passive voice is not usually used with perfect progressive tenses, and here’s why if you feel curious.
Present tense verbs take place now or could take place now.
Active: I walk the dog.
Passive: The dog is walked by me.
Present perfect verbs describe actions that have happened one or more times before now. Watch out for this verb tense. The perfect tenses describe actions taking place in relation to a specific time or event; in present perfect tense, that specific time is now (the present). It gets tricky because the time before now is the past!
Active : I have walked the dog once a week since January.
Passive : The dog has been walked by me once a week since January.
Present progressive describe what is happening and continuing to happen now.
Active : I am walking the dog right now.
Passive: The dog is being walked by me now.
Present perfect progressive verbs describe actions that have happened one or more times before now and are continuing to happen.
Active : Since January, I have been walking the dog.
Future tense verbs describe what could happen in the future.
Active: I will walk the dog.
Passive : The dog will be walked by me tomorrow.
Future perfect verbs describe what will happen by a specific time in the future.
Active : I will have walked the dog twice before the day is over.
Passive : The dog will have been walked by me twice before the day is over.
Future progressive verbs describe something that will continue to occur in the future.
Active: I will be walking the dog every day.
Future perfect progressive verbs describe an action that will continue to occur before a specific time in the future.
Active: This October, I will have been walking the dog for 13 years. It’s your turn!
Just relax about verb tense. If you’d like a little extra help, here’s a trick.
Regular verbs do just what you’d expect them to do. Most verbs follow these rules. Recall that the past participle is the form a verb takes to show a more complicated verb tense. Examples include: will have walked, have sauntered, has galloped.
| Present | Past | Past Participle |
| walk | walked | walked |
| saunter | sauntered | sauntered |
| gallop | galloped | galloped |
Irregular verbs do not follow the rules for verb tense. Here are a few of them.
| Present | Past | Past Participle |
| become | became | become |
| choose | chose | chosen |
| do | did | done |
| eat | ate | eaten |
| go | went | gone |
| get | got | gotten, got |
| ride | rode | ridden |
| see | saw | seen |
| swing | swung | swung |
| take | took | taken |
| write | write | written |
Use a consistent verb tense in the same sentence and in related paragraphs. Don’t change tenses (sometimes called shifting) unless helpful to the meaning of the sentence
Instead of : The painter completed the mural and was taking a nap.
Use : The painter completed the mural and took a nap.
Choose the sentence with a verb-related error.