Regular Verbs

English regular verbs change their form very little (unlike irregular verbs). The past tense and past participle of regular verbs end in -ed, for example:

work, worked, worked

But you should note the following points:

1. Some verbs can be both regular and irregular, for example:

learn, learned, learned
learn, learnt, learnt

2. A few verbs have one meaning when regular and a different meaning when irregular, for example the verb to lie:

  base past past participle meaning example
regular lie lied lied to say untrue things Why do you lie about everything? You lied to me yesterday. And you have just lied to me again.
irregular lie lay lain to be down flat Normally I lie on the floor for my back exercises. But yesterday I lay on the bed. I have never lain on the sofa.

3. The present tense of some regular verbs is the same as the past tense of some irregular verbs, for example the verbs to found and to find:

  present past past participle meaning example
regular found founded founded to start or establish an organization such as a school or business Did Steve Jobs found Apple?

Reed's School was founded by Andrew Reed.
irregular find found found to discover something Where did you find your keys? / I found them in the car.