Verbs are an integral part of constructing sentences in English. They are used to describe actions, events, or states. There are different types of verbs including transitive verbs, which require a direct object, and intransitive verbs, which do not. Verbs also change form depending on tense - present, past, or future. However, some verbs are irregular and do not follow the typical conjugation patterns when changing tense. For example, the past tense of "drink" is "drank" rather than "drinked." This causes difficulties, especially for English language learners.

2. When it comes to constructing a sentence, the verb is widely considered to be one
of the most integral elements. In the simplest of definitions, a verb is an action.
Drink, walk, talk, drive, and dive are all verbs. But as with everything English, it
can't possibly be that easy, can it? Of course not! Verbs can be transitive or
intransitive, can change based on tense, or can just be plain irregular.
What is a verb?
A verb, in the English language, is used to describe an action (talk), an event
(crumble), or a state (rest).
Here is an example of verbs at work:
Johnny should eat an apple and drink some milk.
Both "eat" and "drink" are verbs, as they are things that Johnny should do.

3. Transitive and intransitive verbs
A transitive verb is used when someone does something to an object. This
means that the sentence must have an object. For example, "Bobby finished
his homework." In this sentence, Bobby, the subject, did something to his
homework—he finished it. "Homework" is thus the direct object in the
sentence. On the other hand, intransitive verbs don't require direct objects.
For example, "Sandra will sleep until noon." The verb "sleep" has no object.
Verbs of motion are further examples of intransitive verbs, e.g., "She ran" or
"We drove."
Kinds of verb

4. Present: I drink.
Past: I drank.
Future: I will drink.
A present tense verb is used to describe something you are currently doing. The
past tense is used to describe something you have done, and the future tense
denotes your intention to do something later.
It is important to use the correct tense when you are writing. If you are writing in
the present tense, your verbs must reflect this.
If your narrative takes place in the past, you must use the past tense. Remember,
when writing in the past tense, you must conjugate (modify) your verbs from
present to past. This is seen in the example above. In the present tense, you
drink, but in the past tense, you drank (drink has been conjugated, or modified,
to reflect the past tense).
Example

5. You may be wondering why, when drink moved from present to past tense,
its spelling changed. This is due to one of the trickiest things in the English
language: the irregular verb. There are more than 370 irregular verbs in
modern English, most of which occur when a verb is conjugated into the past
tense. An irregular verb is one that cannot be conjugated by adding –es, –ed,
or –ing to it.
Here is an example of a regular verb compared with an irregular verb:
As you can see, to conjugate the regular verb, our English proofreaders need
only place an –ed at the end, leaving the word otherwise unchanged. To
conjugate the irregular verb, however, we added nothing to the end, but
rather changed the spelling of the original word. This concept is often difficult
for native English speakers to comprehend, so one can only imagine the
difficulties that English as a second language students must encounter!
Common errors occur when students fail to recognize these special rules,
resulting in incorrect verb usage, such as "I digged a hole!" or "I drinked all of
my milk!"
Irregular verb

6. Regular Verb: "Laugh" Irregular Verb: "Dig"
Present: I laugh Present: I dig
Past: I laughed Past: I dug
Future: I will laugh Future: I will dig

8. Prepared by:
Aldrich E. Alcoreza