Verb Conjugation Practice



Conjugation of a verb means that one is putting the verb through all of its tenses or times of action or being.

In order to conjugate a verb, one must know the principal parts of a verb.  The four principal parts of a verb are:

1. Infinitive or Base - used to form the present and future tenses.  (Using a helping verb, will or shall for the future tense.)

2. Present Participle - used to form the progressive form of a verb by using a form of the verb, to be, and the present participle.  (You don't need to know that form and its tenses for this exercise.)

3. Past Principal Part - used to form the simple past tense.

4. Past Participle - used to form the three perfect tenses.  These tenses are formed using a form of the verb, have, and the past participle.

 

Tenses and Their Meanings

Simple Tenses
Present Tense: Action in present time
Past Tense: Action in past time
Future Tense: Action in the future time

Perfect Tenses
Present Perfect: An action that has already occurred at the present time or an action that occurs daily.  It is usually indicated by one of the helping verbs - have or has.  For example:

You have walked this block many times.
or
He has walked this area every month for a year.

Past Perfect: An action completed before another past action, which is usually indicated by the helping verb, had.  For example:

You had walked this path by the time of the fire.

Future Perfect: The action will have been completed before another future action; usually indicated by one of the helping verbs - will have or shall have.  For example:

You will have walked this path by time the alarm goes off at 5.

To conjugate a verb, you need to know the principal parts of the verb.

Example of a regular verb - one that forms its past by adding -d or -ed to the base:
Infinitive or Base: walk
Present Participle: (is) walking
Past: walked
Past Participle: (have) walked

You can conjugate a verb by using one of the personal pronouns in this way:
 
Present Tense: You walk Present Perfect: You have walked
Past Tense: You walked Past Perfect: You had walked
Future Tense: You will walk Future Perfect : You will have walked


Practice Exercise
Below are five regular verbs.  Conjugate them into the six tenses and write down your answers.  Look at the example of the verb walk above and try to do these the same way.  Be sure to do all six tenses: present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect and future perfect.

Using the pronoun, you, conjugate these five verbs:

1. jump
2. skip
3. taste
4. study
5. play

 

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