Exercises and Explanation: 1 English Verb Form
The section Exercises and explanation: 1 English Verb Form focuses on the forms of different tenses, demonstrating how they appear in affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentences. The exercises offer numerous opportunities for practicing these forms.
Exercises and Explanation: 2 or More English verb forms
The section Exercises with 2 or more English verb forms aims to clarify when a verb form should be used through contrastive exercises. English verb forms not only anchor actions in time (present, past, or future) but also define their nature, such as whether the action is completed and/or in progress.
Contrastive Exercises
These exercises require a choice between two verb forms, aiding in identifying the appropriate context for each.
Mix of Tenses
Ideally, foreign language learners attain a flawless command of all English verb forms in writing and speaking. To assess your overall proficiency, try using a mix of tenses.
Irregular Verbs
To practise your irregular verbs (go-went-gone), visit the page with exercises dedicated to irregular verbs.
If you need to refresh your memory, check out this extensive list of irregular verbs.
Exercises with Auxiliaries and Modal Verbs
English differentiates between auxiliaries and modal verbs. Auxiliary verbs (to be, to have, to do) combine with present participle or past participles or infinitive to create verb forms for ordinary verbs. Modal verbs combine with infinitives to express ability, probability, necessity, permission, obligation, deduction etc.
For a thorough grasp of when to use the various auxiliary verbs, it’s advisable to visit the pages modal mix and modalities (see below). On the remaining pages, you’ll find exercises primarily focused on practicing the form of the auxiliary verb or addressing common issues, such as tag questions and short yes/no answers.
Exercises and explanation: the future
There is more than one way of expressing the future in English. The pages below deal with most of these future forms. Each page offers information about the form and usage of these forms. In the contrastive exercises, you’ll need to make a choice between two future verb forms, helping you to identify the appropriate context for each.
Exercises and explanation: the passive
The passive voice is commonly employed in formal English and academic language, particularly when it does not matter who performs the action. On the pages below, you can practise distinguishing between active and passive voice, the forms of the various tenses and special passive constructions.
| Recognizing the active and passive voice |
| Simple Present Passive (The house is built.) |
| Simple Past Passive (The house was built.) |
| Continuous Passive (The house is/was being built.) |
| Perfect Passive (The house has/had been built.) |
| Future en Modal Passive (The house will be built. / The house may have been built.) |
| Passive mix |
| Double Object passive (direct object and indirect object) (He gave her a present. She was given a present. A present was given to her) |
| Personal Passive (She is known to have built a house.) |
| List of irregular verbs |
Exercises with various grammatical subjects
Quantifiers, numbers and time
- Cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers and the date
- Few / a few / little / a little
- Telling the time
- Much / many / a lot
Nouns and everything
- Adverb and adjective (slow / slowly)
- Some / any
- Degrees of comparison (-er / -est and more / most)
- Possessives ‘s / s’ / of
- Definite and indefinite articles (a / an / the)
- Countable and uncountable nouns / singular and plural
Pronouns
- Demonstrative pronouns (this / that / these /those)
- Relative pronouns (who(m) / whose / which / that, etc.)
- Possessive pronouns (my / mine / of mine etc.)
- Personal pronouns (I / me / you / he / him, etc.)
- Interrogative pronoun (who / what / which, etc.)
- Reflexive pronouns (myself / yourself, etc.)