People learning English for the first time …
- I kicked / kick the ball.
- I jumped / jump over the fence.
- I looked / look at the book.
“OK, verbs are easy! Just add ‘ed’ and it’s past tense. I got this…”
- I came / come home.
- I slept / sleep tonight.
- I woke / wake up tomorrow.
“All right, it’s a little weird, but I can still do this”
- I shut / shut the door.
- I read / read a book.
- I thought / think about homework.
- I ate / eat dinner.
“Really???”
- I went / go to school.
- I had to / must study.
“What the actual fuck? That’s not even the same word!”
That last one’s not entirely fair; it should be “I have to study”
English is still pretty inconsistent with some of its verbs though
A couple of those aren’t particularly fair because you’d never actually use “I slept tonight” in most cases. It’d be “I will sleep tonight/I slept last night”. The individual verbs aren’t meant to be interchangeable like that, they vary based on the nouns they’re referring to and the perspective.
Not to say it isn’t confusing or inconsistent, but there is a larger grammatical pattern at play that you learn over time.
Wait till you hear about verbs in other languages
With gender!
I’m still not entirely sure what a preposition is.
Anything you can do to a log.
- . . . on a log.
- . . . with a log.
- . . . around a log.
- . . . despite a log.
- . . . regarding a log.
read a log
I always remember it because it has the word “position” in it. They’re words that describe the “position” of something in location, direction, or time.
I’m going “to” the park. I sat “on” the chair. I’ll see you “at” noon.
What about adjectives 😨
When I came out, my aunt asked me what my adverbs are. She thinks it makes us look silly to pretend it’s so complicated.
She pretended not to be able to remember LGBT in the right order, despite the fact that she was a nurse and has memories hundreds of acronyms.
I would be tempted to tell her my adverb is fabulously.
“I fabulously eat. I fabulously think. And I’m going to fabulously walk away from this conversation now.”
That’s fucking awesome lmao
Spanish moment
