What are past participles?

We form past participles from verbs and then use them in a number of different ways including:

• As an adjective
• To form perfect tenses
• To form the passive voice

We form the past participles of regular verbs in the same way as we form the past tense – by adding “-ed”.

In British English, we form the past participles of irregular verbs with different endings, such as “-en” or “-t”.

Some examples of how we form past participles from regular verbs

• To wash – washed
• To shout – shouted
• To cook – cooked
• To paint – painted
• To play – played
• To trap – trapped
• To stop – stopped
• To offer – offered
• To cry – cried
• To fry – fried

Notice that although all these past participles end in “-ed”, sometimes this is just added to the root word (washed, shouted), sometimes the last consonant is doubled (stopped, trapped), and sometimes the final letter of the root word is changed (cried, fried). There are some spelling rules to explain these differences. We’ll look at the rules in another post but for now it’s enough to get used to the different forms.

Some examples of how we form past participles from irregular verbs

• To burn – burnt
• To learn – learnt
• To break – broken
• To forget – forgotten
• To take – taken
• To tear – torn
• To draw – drawn
• To make – made
• To think – thought
• To catch – caught
• To be – been
• To see – seen

Because there are no particular spelling rules to help us with the different forms, we just have to remember them and then get used to using them.

For more about regular and irregular verbs, see here.

Using past participles as adjectives

We can use many (but not all) past participles as adjectives. Here are some examples:

• A washed car.
• The burnt house.
• This chair is broken.
• His shirt was torn.
• Cooked meat.
• A forgotten hero.
• Restricted access.

Some past participles can’t be adjectives.

• We can’t, for instance, say “The talked dog was a sensation”. We can, however, use the present participle of talk as an adjective: “The talking dog was a sensation”.
• We can say “the drunk man”, but we can’t say “the drunk cup of tea”.
• We can’t say “a gone time”, but we can say “a by-gone time”.
• We can’t say “an eaten meal”, but we can say “a half-eaten meal”.

Although there are rules that might explain some of these examples, it is easier – at the moment – just to get used to what is commonly used and what isn’t.

Using past participles to form perfect tenses

We use past participles with the auxiliary verb “have” to make the past present and future verb tenses.

Here are some examples of how we use past participles to make perfect tenses:

1. Past perfect tense
   • I had broken the record.
   • He had learnt all the rules
2. Present perfect tense
   • I have broken the record.
   • He has learnt all the rules.
3. Future perfect tense
   • I will have broken the record.
   • He will have learnt all the rules.

For more about verb tenses, see here.

Using past participles to form the passive voice

NOTE: When a verb is used in its “active voice” the action is normally done by the subject: “The dog bit the boy”. In the verb’s “passive voice” the action is done to the subject: “The boy was bitten by the boy”.

We usually form the passive voice using a form of the verb to be, together with a past past participle.

Here are some examples of how we use past participles to make the passive voice:

• The story was written by Chekov.
• The race was won by my friend.
• He is being taught by an expert.
• She is always being laughed at.
• He will be talked about for a long time.
• The cat was being chased by a dog.

^{Posted by Graham}