Explain Past Participles

The past participles are often the most difficult of the forms to learn. If you have been speaking English most of your life, you know the past participles of most verbs, simply because you have heard them most of your life: we use past participles, for instance, when we want to say we "have done" something ("She has gone on vacation").

However, if you have heard the wrong forms and have remembered those, you may be unsure what the correct forms are. If you are confused about the past participle of a verb, you can find the correct form by looking up the verb in a dictionary.

Patterns for forming past participles
There are a couple of patterns into which past participles fall.

Some verbs use the past tense form of the verb.
Examples: The past participle of the verb "play" is "played"; " try" is "tried"; "want" is "wanted."

Some verbs follow an "en" pattern.
Examples: The past participle of "write" is "written"; "take" is "taken"; "eat" is "eaten."

Irregular past participles
Some verbs don’t seem to follow a pattern, and it easy to make mistakes with them. Since others will judge you by the way you speak and write, it is worth the effort to learn the correct forms of some of the most common irregular past participles.

Examples: The past participle of "sing" is "sung"; "blow" is "blown"; "swim" is "swum."