Verbs Educational Resources

A verb describes an action, state of being, or something that has happened. It is an important part of speech, and can be used in several different ways. It is important that students understand verb tense, subject/object agreement, valency, and more. But, students can take simple steps to understanding how to use verbs with the Education.com resources below.

Verbs are very useful parts of speech that tell you what is happening, has happened, or will happen. To understand how to both understand and use verbs, there are several important aspects to verbs students should consider:

• Infinitive: the most basic form of a verb is not conjugated.
• Tense: a verb’s tense indicates the point in time in which an action occurred, i.e. present, past, future, etc.
• Subject/object agreement: conjugation of a verb depends on the subject or object it is connected to.

Valency indicates how many subjects or objects a verb refers to. Three levels of valency are defined below:

• Intransitive verbs only refer to a subject, e.g. “He is falling.”
• Transitive verbs have both a subject and a direct object, e.g. “He has a motorcycle.”
• Ditransitive verbs have a subject, direct object, and indirect object, e.g. “He made her something to eat.”

To teach students tenses, an easy starting place is infinitive verbs. Then, progress down the chart below:

• Infinitive: “to + verb,” e.g. “to walk,” “to play,” etc.
• Simple present: “He walks,” “He plays,” etc.
• Simple progressive: “simple present verb + infinitive verb + ing,” e.g. “He is walking,” “He is playing,” etc.
• Simple past: “He talked,” “He played,” etc.
• Past continuous: “He was talking,” “He was playing,” etc.
• Simple future: “He will talk,” “He will play,” etc.
• Future continuous: “He will be talking,” “He will be playing,” etc.

There are many more tenses, and irregular verbs to master as well. Students who practice with the above Education.com resources will quickly learn how to use verbs.