What are Verbs? You must have read about Verbs in your previous classes. Do you remember their uses?
Let's read the passage below and note the verbs.
All About the Zoo
A zoo is a place where many kinds of animals and birds live together in harmony. Many years ago, animals in a zoo were kept in cages and people would view them from outside their cages. However, these days, things have significantly changed. Most zoos try to provide animals with surroundings that resemble their natural habitat. Many of the endangered species successfully bred in the zoo are later re-introduced to their natural environment to continue their survival. Many of the species are successfully protected and later introduced to the wild. A visit to the zoo will allow you the chance to see many kinds of animals and birds. Zoos help educate people of the importance of conservation. They also help scientists carry ont various studies that are aimed to improve the lives of the animals by understanding them better.
Now, talk about the highlighted words with a partner. In pairs discuss the following questions:
What is a verb?
What difierent types of verbs are there in English?
What roles do verb play in a sentence?
Let's read the above passage again and discuss in pair and identify verbs from the dialogue below:
A: Hello! Good Morning!
B: Hello! Good Morning to you too!
A: We have come here to see the zoo.
B: OK, come on, we have good arrangements for children.
A: Thank you!
All students will go in a line to see the animals.
B: Please make sure that students don't disturb the animals.
A: Yes, of course, they won't.
B: Thank you, please let them know that zoo animals are not domestic animals.
A: Ok, I'm sure students will be able to know many things about the wild life by visiting the zoo. And thanks a lot for your advice.
B: They will if they remain calm and observe carefully. Thank you all for coming to visit the zoo.
Now, let's try to describe the verbs:
A word or phrase that describes an action, condition or experience is a verb. The words ‘run’, ‘keep’, and ‘feel’ are all verbs. The grammatical forms of verbs include number, person, and tense.
We learnt about auxiliary verbs in our previous classes.
Now, read the following examples and talk with your partner about the uses of different verbs. Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs expressing tense (main verbs in bold)
Examples of Auxiliary Verbs:
I have been sitting here since 7 o'clock.
Sabit was waiting for the train to arrive.
He will have broken the record by then.
Auxiliary Verbs and Verb Phrases:
An auxiliary verb (also called a helping verb) accompanies a main verb to express its tense, mood, or voice. The most common auxiliary verbs are be, do, and have. You will see these in the following forms:
Be: am, is, are, was, were, being, been Do: does, do, did
Have: has, have, had, having
Modal auxiliary verbs are also auxiliary verbs. They are can, could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, and would. (These never change their forms.)
A verb phrase is made up of the auxiliary verb(s) and the main verb. In the examples below, the verb phrase is underlined with main verb in bold:
For example, He is reading a book. Here 'is reading’ is a verb phrase where ’is’= an auxiliary verb and ‘reading'= main verb
Now, let's try to find out the differences between regular and irregular Verbs.
Regular Verbs
Those verbs that form their past participle with ‘d’ or ‘ed’ are regular verbs. These verbs do not undergo major changes while changing forms.
1. If the verb ends with a vowel, only ‘d’ is added.
For example:
Present tense Past tense
share shared
scare scared
2. If the verb ends with a consonant,’ed’ is added.
For example:
Present tense — Past tense
want — wanted
shout — shouted
kill — killed
Irregular Verbs
These type of verbs undergo considerable changes when changing forms.
Present tense — Past tense
go — went
run — ran
think — thought
seek — sought
Transitive Verb
When a verd takes an object, it is called transitive verb. Look at the example below:
He has kicked the ball.
We shared the idea together.
Here, kick and share are transitive verbs because they have objects and without these objects e. g. the ball, the idea; ‘he has kicked and we shared are incomplete.
In fact, transitive verbs transfer their actions to the object.
Here are some examples of transitive verbs:
I want an apple.
He is carrying a suitcase.
She looked at me.
Intransitive verb
When a verb does not take an object, it is called intransitive verb. Intransitive verb means a verb without an object. Here are some examples of intransitive verbs:
She shouted loudly.
She was singing.
Dogs bark.
She is laughing.
Some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive depending of how they are used in sentences.
Examples:
Intransitive — Transitive
She sang. — She sang a song
The bell rang. — He rang the bell
We ate. — We ate some fish.
Exercise
Choose the correct form of the verb in brackets and fill in the gaps.
Kuheli is a student of class eight. Her final exams (be) __ next week, so there are no classes. Like all the other students in her class she (revise) __ her lessons. But she (not study) __ very hard right now. She (sit) __ in the garden of her house (read) __ her notes. It is a beautiful day. Birds (sing) __ in the trees. She(not sit/usually) __ in the garden. Normally she (go) __ to school at nine o'clock to (ahend) classes. She (have) __ lunch at about one with her friends.
