English Conjugation In English How Did You Learn It?

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Caramelicious Sunday 23rd of October 2005 07:51:05 AM
Conjugation in English - I would like to know from all of the non-native English speakers, how does conjugation in English work.
It sounds weird I guess, but of course being native I don't really notice these things...
In English do we have classes of verbs or how are they organized and stuff?
What would an English lesson in Present Tense conjugation look like?
Just a question that I have.
Thanks all ;) :D

billogna Tuesday 25th of October 2005 03:01:09 AM
conjugation - Our language is Germanic so English verbs work very Scandinavian-like. There isn't as much conjugation as in Romance languages; we rely more on helping verbs.

To walk:
I walk.
You walk.
He walks.
I am walking.
I will walk.
etc.

Besides the gerund ending "ing", the completed "ed" or the third person "s", English does very little to the verb itself. Instead, we surround it with helpers (will, shall, do, not, have, etc.).

sma Tuesday 25th of October 2005 04:13:36 AM
- well one thing that I learnt in school, and I think at least in Germany many are taught, is the rule
"he, she, it 's' muss mit" meaning the s has to be added to verbs when using he, she, it :)

and I think there are no classes of verbs in English unlike Spanish for example

Jakee Thursday 24th of November 2005 11:54:21 PM
- The only classes of verbs are irregular verbs and regular verbs :D

The verbs have 3 tenses, right? The present, the past tense and the 3. form (used in present perfect and pluperfect).

Regular verbs conjugate like:
walk, walkED, walkED
laugh, laughED, laughED
-ED ending added

And the irregular verbs are, well, quite irregular :D Like:
go, went, gone
tear, tore torn
write, wrote, written
swim, swam, swum
draw, drew, drawn
throw, threw, thrown

The irregular verbs can be arranged by conjugation. The verbs which have the same form in past tence and perfect, or verbs which have d in the end that changes into t... Blah... that's enough :D

NateD Saturday 26th of November 2005 10:23:49 PM
- English verbs are separated, but only in form, and most verbs take on the same forms.

The -ing isn't necessarily a gerund, since a gerund can't be a verb, though it's tricky to spot the difference. A gerund is a verb used syntactically as a noun, as in:

"I love swimming."

There can be a point of confusion, however. A participle uses -ing and is much closer to a verb, as in the phrase:

"Carrying fire-logs, he tripped into a ditch."

The -ing of the pure verb, however, is merely an emphatic form:

"He forms."
"He is forming."

There's only a difference in emphasis, not in tense. German, for example, has emphatic words that English doesn't have, so it'd be easy to make an analogy for native German-speakers (I would think).

English tense gets very complicated. For example, the sentence:

"I will have had gone to the store."

Like drowning in a raging sea of syntax.

I know I didn't really answer the question, but I hope it helped somebody out!

Mathieu Sunday 27th of November 2005 02:00:41 AM
- Hmm conjugation is fairly easy I think, as English doesn't have so many forms - 2 for present tense (e.g. "walk", "walks"), and no more than 1 for past ("walked"), which is even identical to the perfect present tense ("have walked"). Furthermore, in perfect tense, you [b]always[/b] get the same auxiliary with every verb, namely "have". ("I have walked", "I have fallen", "I have seen", etc.). So forming it to me never was any trouble at all. That is, the regular ones. The irregular ones, you just have to learn by heart (I used to have to learn tons of paradigms like "to sing - sang - sung" etc., like Jakee said). But that is all OK. IMO there aren't outrageously many irregular ones or anything, it only took me a few weeks and then I knew them. Still now and then I'm not sure, especially when they sound alike ("learned"? "learnt"?) and I still make mistakes with that.

But the most problematic thing (if really a problem) for me always has been applying the correct tense. The rules as to which tense would be most suitable is complicated, abstract, and I never understood it. I used to just go by intuition and get most of it right anyway, but I'm not completely spot on, as I might have been when I did do it by the rules (although, I think in the end you'll forget the rules anyway and just do what comes naturally..).
For example, what I do recall, is things like "you have to say "it [b]has[/b] rained, because it has taken a reasonable period in the past somewhere (it wasn't just like *snap* and it rained), and/or the results of that action is still visible". There are all sorts of silly rules to every tense, eventually pretty much every sentence ends up getting another tense than you'd get in my native, Dutch.

Hmm as for that sea of syntax that NateD posted, that's not too much of a problem for me - it is a very predictable pattern and the word order is very rigid.. inflected auxiliary on the left, auxiliaries in the middle, main verb at the right, and the object all the way at the end. Not that I conciously know rules like this or something, but it 'feels' rigid, and I think that is the analysis why :)
Another thing, to me, verbs are always "where they belong" in English:
That I saw [b]him walk[/b] ("I" is the one that "sees", "him" is the one that "walks", both are grouped nicely)

Dutch:
Dat ik [b]hem[/b] zag [b]lopen[/b]
that I [b]him[/b] saw [b]walk[/b]
"That I saw him walk"

That's rather awkward, then the English one is probably more logical :p

A random phrase in Dutch that just comes to mind with some nice tensing as well :D :

Ik zou naar de winkel kunnen zijn gelopen
I would to the store can be walked
"I could have walked to the store"

Dat ik eraan zou kunnen hebben zitten werken
that I on-it would can have sit work
"That I could have worked on it"

Ik zou hem het kunnen laten doen helpen opruimen
I would him it could let do help clean-up
"I could have made him help cleaning up"

They look a bit extreme but I think complicated things are formed rather often, in every language, and even the simple things get different tenses if you compare English to a language like Dutch.

Dat ik gelopen heb
that I walked have
"That I walked"

Edit: hmm another I just had to share ;)

Het zou gekund moeten hebben
It would can-ed must have
"It should have been possible"

Again, you can see the two language take a totally different approach to expressing it. And this one isn't extreme, the Dutch one as well as the English one would be understood immediately by natives. As mentioned, the reason I can think of such a decent English translation is because I go by intuition and imitation, not by rules (because could you think of a rule to go from the one to the other? :D)

Cliven Tuesday 29th of November 2005 01:38:43 AM
- As a person living in England, I'm pretty much as native as it gets, but I still had to learn conjugation in school. Anyway, I basically learned it like this:

[b]TO PLAY[/b]
I play
You play (thou play[b]est[/b])
He/She/It play[b]s[/b]
We play
You play
They play

...past...
played
did play
used to play
was play[b]ing[/b]
had play[b]ed[/b]
has/have(/hath) play[b]ed[/b]
...etc...

...present...
play
do play
am/is/are(/art) play[b]ing[/b]

...future...
will play
am/is/are(/art) going to play

and that's about it. I put the abandoned singular-2nd-person "thou" forms in brackets just in case thou wanted them for whatever reason. Other rules we had to lean in school were things like -y endings turning into -i and then the ending (e.g. family -> famil[b]ies[/b], to party -> part[b]ied[/b]).

Sorry if everything I said makes no sense.

Phrasebase Archive
	Caramelicious	Sunday 23rd of October 2005 07:51:05 AM
	Conjugation in English - I would like to know from all of the non-native English speakers, how does conjugation in English work. It sounds weird I guess, but of course being native I don't really notice these things... In English do we have classes of verbs or how are they organized and stuff? What would an English lesson in Present Tense conjugation look like? Just a question that I have. Thanks all ;) :D
	billogna	Tuesday 25th of October 2005 03:01:09 AM
	conjugation - Our language is Germanic so English verbs work very Scandinavian-like. There isn't as much conjugation as in Romance languages; we rely more on helping verbs. To walk: I walk. You walk. He walks. I am walking. I will walk. etc. Besides the gerund ending "ing", the completed "ed" or the third person "s", English does very little to the verb itself. Instead, we surround it with helpers (will, shall, do, not, have, etc.).
	sma	Tuesday 25th of October 2005 04:13:36 AM
	- well one thing that I learnt in school, and I think at least in Germany many are taught, is the rule "he, she, it 's' muss mit" meaning the s has to be added to verbs when using he, she, it :) and I think there are no classes of verbs in English unlike Spanish for example
	Jakee	Thursday 24th of November 2005 11:54:21 PM
	- The only classes of verbs are irregular verbs and regular verbs :D The verbs have 3 tenses, right? The present, the past tense and the 3. form (used in present perfect and pluperfect). Regular verbs conjugate like: walk, walkED, walkED laugh, laughED, laughED -ED ending added And the irregular verbs are, well, quite irregular :D Like: go, went, gone tear, tore torn write, wrote, written swim, swam, swum draw, drew, drawn throw, threw, thrown The irregular verbs can be arranged by conjugation. The verbs which have the same form in past tence and perfect, or verbs which have d in the end that changes into t... Blah... that's enough :D
	NateD	Saturday 26th of November 2005 10:23:49 PM
	- English verbs are separated, but only in form, and most verbs take on the same forms. The -ing isn't necessarily a gerund, since a gerund can't be a verb, though it's tricky to spot the difference. A gerund is a verb used syntactically as a noun, as in: "I love swimming." There can be a point of confusion, however. A participle uses -ing and is much closer to a verb, as in the phrase: "Carrying fire-logs, he tripped into a ditch." The -ing of the pure verb, however, is merely an emphatic form: "He forms." "He is forming." There's only a difference in emphasis, not in tense. German, for example, has emphatic words that English doesn't have, so it'd be easy to make an analogy for native German-speakers (I would think). English tense gets very complicated. For example, the sentence: "I will have had gone to the store." Like drowning in a raging sea of syntax. I know I didn't really answer the question, but I hope it helped somebody out!
	Mathieu	Sunday 27th of November 2005 02:00:41 AM
	- Hmm conjugation is fairly easy I think, as English doesn't have so many forms - 2 for present tense (e.g. "walk", "walks"), and no more than 1 for past ("walked"), which is even identical to the perfect present tense ("have walked"). Furthermore, in perfect tense, you [b]always[/b] get the same auxiliary with every verb, namely "have". ("I have walked", "I have fallen", "I have seen", etc.). So forming it to me never was any trouble at all. That is, the regular ones. The irregular ones, you just have to learn by heart (I used to have to learn tons of paradigms like "to sing - sang - sung" etc., like Jakee said). But that is all OK. IMO there aren't outrageously many irregular ones or anything, it only took me a few weeks and then I knew them. Still now and then I'm not sure, especially when they sound alike ("learned"? "learnt"?) and I still make mistakes with that. But the most problematic thing (if really a problem) for me always has been applying the correct tense. The rules as to which tense would be most suitable is complicated, abstract, and I never understood it. I used to just go by intuition and get most of it right anyway, but I'm not completely spot on, as I might have been when I did do it by the rules (although, I think in the end you'll forget the rules anyway and just do what comes naturally..). For example, what I do recall, is things like "you have to say "it [b]has[/b] rained, because it has taken a reasonable period in the past somewhere (it wasn't just like snap and it rained), and/or the results of that action is still visible". There are all sorts of silly rules to every tense, eventually pretty much every sentence ends up getting another tense than you'd get in my native, Dutch. Hmm as for that sea of syntax that NateD posted, that's not too much of a problem for me - it is a very predictable pattern and the word order is very rigid.. inflected auxiliary on the left, auxiliaries in the middle, main verb at the right, and the object all the way at the end. Not that I conciously know rules like this or something, but it 'feels' rigid, and I think that is the analysis why :) Another thing, to me, verbs are always "where they belong" in English: That I saw [b]him walk[/b] ("I" is the one that "sees", "him" is the one that "walks", both are grouped nicely) Dutch: Dat ik [b]hem[/b] zag [b]lopen[/b] that I [b]him[/b] saw [b]walk[/b] "That I saw him walk" That's rather awkward, then the English one is probably more logical :p A random phrase in Dutch that just comes to mind with some nice tensing as well :D : Ik zou naar de winkel kunnen zijn gelopen I would to the store can be walked "I could have walked to the store" Dat ik eraan zou kunnen hebben zitten werken that I on-it would can have sit work "That I could have worked on it" Ik zou hem het kunnen laten doen helpen opruimen I would him it could let do help clean-up "I could have made him help cleaning up" They look a bit extreme but I think complicated things are formed rather often, in every language, and even the simple things get different tenses if you compare English to a language like Dutch. Dat ik gelopen heb that I walked have "That I walked" Edit: hmm another I just had to share ;) Het zou gekund moeten hebben It would can-ed must have "It should have been possible" Again, you can see the two language take a totally different approach to expressing it. And this one isn't extreme, the Dutch one as well as the English one would be understood immediately by natives. As mentioned, the reason I can think of such a decent English translation is because I go by intuition and imitation, not by rules (because could you think of a rule to go from the one to the other? :D)
	Cliven	Tuesday 29th of November 2005 01:38:43 AM
	- As a person living in England, I'm pretty much as native as it gets, but I still had to learn conjugation in school. Anyway, I basically learned it like this: [b]TO PLAY[/b] I play You play (thou play[b]est[/b]) He/She/It play[b]s[/b] We play You play They play ...past... played did play used to play was play[b]ing[/b] had play[b]ed[/b] has/have(/hath) play[b]ed[/b] ...etc... ...present... play do play am/is/are(/art) play[b]ing[/b] ...future... will play am/is/are(/art) going to play and that's about it. I put the abandoned singular-2nd-person "thou" forms in brackets just in case thou wanted them for whatever reason. Other rules we had to lean in school were things like -y endings turning into -i and then the ending (e.g. family -> famil[b]ies[/b], to party -> part[b]ied[/b]). Sorry if everything I said makes no sense.