ENGLISH VERBS

Action Verbs
Some verbs are more urgent to learn than others. Knowing "go" and "eat" takes priority over "flummox" and "pontificate." Your best start is with action verbs -- words that suggest basic daily activities.

Consider what the average person does in an average day: You "wake up," you "eat" breakfast, and then you "work." You "drive" to your office, where you "drink" coffee and "talk" with your boss. Then you "return" home and "cook" dinner before you "sleep" all night.

This might not be your average day, so consider action verbs that describe your own life: Maybe you "swim" competitively, or you "program" computers. Start with the verbs that relate to familiar topics and then expand from there.
The Present Tense
For first-time learners, English tenses can be confusing. Unlike other European languages, English gets a boost from "to be." In the present tense, English-speakers frequently use "am," "are" and "is" to prompt other verbs, adding an "-ing" suffix to the verb.

Once a student gets the hang of this, present-tense verbs are easy: Instead of "I walk," say "I am walking." Instead of "she looks," try "she is looking."
The Future Tense
Similar to present-tense verbs, the future tense relies on "to be." But the future tense is even easier: English speakers use the term "will" and add the verb to this. "I will shop" or "you will exercise." This one modifier makes the future a bright place.

For more colloquial English (though still universally accepted), "to be" plus "to go" are common modifiers as well. "He is going to jog," "we are going to sail a boat." This is a more complex future-tense construction and might confuse new speakers, but if students can master the "going to" form, English will become much easier to understand.
The Past Tense
The hardest part of English is its irregular verbs. For every rule you encounter, another rule contradicts it. The past tense is particularly difficult in English, because so many verbs are unique.

For new speakers of English, the easiest past-tense verbs to remember end simply by adding an "-ed". For example, you "started" your car, you "cooked" a meal, you "learned" a new skill.

The countless irregular verbs require rote memorization, and there's no way around it. Past-tense verbs like "ate," "found," "went," "rung" and "brought" are annoying, but they're vital to learn. The sooner a new English student can commit them to memory, the better.