Grammar for Everyone - Barbara Dykes 2007

Past participles
Introduction
Part II The parts of speech

These are a little more tricky than present participles as they are not all formed in the same way. Some are the same as the past tense, but some are different again and need to be learnt. Because, as children, we adopt the speech we hear around us, some grow up using ungrammatical forms and many small children make up forms by analogy with others, such as ’I bringed (or ’brang’) my books’ and ’I cutted my finger’. Even if they are not put right at home, they will learn the correct forms at school, given practice in both speech and writing.

Again, charts for the wall and in the grammar exercise books, quick 5-minute tests and a little relevant homework provide very useful reinforcement. It doesn’t put a child down to correct his speech, rather it improves his chances in life later.

Past participles are of two kinds.

Same as the past (or present) tense

These look the same as the past tense and end in ’ed’, ’d’ or ’t’. These are said to be regular (or weak).

For example:

ed - laughed

d - loved

t - crept, left

They may be the same as the present tense also as in cut, put etc.

Remember, too, that some are spelt with ’ed’ though the ending sounds like ’t’, for example: picked, bewitched, boxed

Different from the past tense

These are the participles that are different from the past tense, usually because the inside vowel changes. They are called irregular (or strong).

For example:

Present tense

break

Past tense

broke

Past participle

broken

The tip for telling the difference between the past tense and the past participle is to put ’I have’ in front of it. If it sounds correct, then that is the past participle.

For example, which sounds correct:

I have broke.

or I have broken.