Verbs

show is an irregular verb

show / showed / shown

Please show me the book.

I showed you the book yesterday.

I have shown you the book everyday

need is a regular verb so you add -ed to make past tense - needed.

the past participle of need is also needed

Past perfect is had + past participle.

I had needed a new computer and Santa gave me one!

To form past simple you add -ed to the verb. These verbs are called regular verbs.

walk - walked listen - listened organize - organized

BUT there are irregular verbs theses verbs you don't add -ed to make past simple you have another word or sometimes the same word. You have to memorize irregular verbs

run - ran cut - cut dig - dug think - thought

For regular verbs you add -ed

eg listen = listened, work = worked, isolate = isolated

For irregular verbs there is no rule you have to remember each past form.

eg run = ran, draw = drew, fight = fought

They like ice cream.

The boy ate the ice cream.

His brother bought an ice cream.

Their mother makes ice cream.

Mr Smith doesn't like ice cream.

The subject and the verbs are in bold.

It probably isn't necessary in your own language, except to refine your use of subjects and verbs in tricky situations. (What you need is paper and pens.) (The subject and verb seem to disagree in this case; the subject is "what you need" which is singular.)

It is possibly necessary to study subject/verb agreement in a new language. Other languages might be more complicated than your own language as far as subject/verb agreement goes. For example, in English we say: I see, you see, we see, they see, she sees, he sees, it sees. There are only two forms of the verb "see." In German they say, Ich sehe, du siehst, er sieht, sie sieht, es sieht, wir sehen, Sie sehen, ihr seht, sie sehen. (I did not give you these in the same order as the English.) Notice that the verb changes more than it does in English. So a non-German speaker would have to study these forms in order to get them right.

To change regular verbs to past tense add -ed

walk - walked, listen - listened, harass - harassed

There is no rule to change irregular verbs. You have to learn the past forms.

run - ran, catch - caught, misunderstand - misunderstood

Most verbs are regular verbs and to make the past tenses you add -ed.

walk / walked, talk / talked, organise / organised.

Some verbs are irregular this means you don;t add -ed to make the past tense the past tense is another word or sometimes the same word.

run / ran, swim / swam, sleep / slept, cut / cut, meet / met.

Past simple is one main verb in past tense and no auxiliary verb. Most verbs form past tense by adding -ed these are called regular verbs. Some past tense verbs have irregular forms for example see/saw.

Past simple has two main uses:

*To talk about something that happened at a definite time in the past eg

I saw John last week.

*To talk about something that is unlikely to happen now or in the future eg

If I had a dog I would look after it.

Negative past simple is formed with did not - didn't

I didn't see john last week. (notice the verb is in present form)

Most verbs are regular verbs and the past tense is formed by adding -ed to the verb eg

walk - walked, talk - talked, listen - listened, procrastinate - procrastinated.

Some verbs are irregular and the past form is not made by adding -ed. Irregular verb past forms are:

the same word - cut - cut, put - put, set - set, split - split

or

a new word - shoot - shot, tell - told, understand - understood

With irregular verbs you have to learn the past forms because there is no rule for how they are formed.