The past participle (the third form: go → gone) never stands alone. It builds the perfect tenses with have/has/had (I have seen it) and the passive voice with be (The house was built in 1990). For regular verbs it looks exactly like the past simple (-ed); for irregular verbs it is the third column of the classic table: go → went → gone, see → saw → seen, take → took → taken.
When to use it
Present Perfect: experience / result
I have never eaten sushi.
I have never eaten sushi.
Past Perfect: earlier past
The train had left when we arrived.
The train had left when we arrived.
Passive voice
This book was written in 1950.
This book was written in 1950.
Regular endings
| + -ed | work → worked |
| -e → -d | live → lived |
| consonant + y → -ied | study → studied |
| doubling | stop → stopped |
Irregular verbs
-en / -n participle
i → a → u
Same as past simple
No change
Completely irregular
Frequently asked
The past participle (the third form: go → gone) never stands alone. It builds the perfect tenses with have/has/had (I have seen it) and the passive voice with be (The house was built in 1990). For regular verbs it looks exactly like the past simple (-ed); for irregular verbs it is the third column of the classic table: go → went → gone, see → saw → seen, take → took → taken. The main cases are present perfect: experience / result, past perfect: earlier past and passive voice. For example: I have never eaten sushi. — I have never eaten sushi..
Regular verbs take: + -ed → worked; -e → -d → lived; consonant + y → -ied → studied; doubling → stopped.
The most common ones are be, have, do, say, go, get, make and know. Each has its own conjugation table with the full set of forms.
The past participle sits at A2 — Elementary, and Verboteca practice is free at A1. The rule, the tables and the examples on this page stay readable without a subscription or an account.
Every verb form becomes a card that comes back right before you would forget it.
