Main verbs

Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says:

I teach.

People eat.

The Earth rotates.

Do you understand something? Has this person communicated something to you? Probably yes!
Not a lot, but something. That's because these verbs are main verbs and have meaning on their own. They tell us something. Of course, there are thousands of main verbs. In the following table we see example sentences with helping verbs and main verbs.

Notice that all of these sentences have a main verb. Only some of them have a helping verb.

           

.	helping verb	.	main verb
John	.	.	likes	coffee.
You	.	.	lied	to me.
They	.	.	are	happy.
The children	are	.	playing.	.
We	must	go	now.	I
do	not	want	any.	.

Helping verbs and main verbs can be further sub-divided, as we shall see on the following pages.
Forms of Main Verbs
Main verbs (except the verb "be") have only 4, 5 or 6 forms. "Be" has 9 forms.

Main verbs are also called "lexical verbs".

.	V1	V2	V3	.	.	.
.	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple, 3rd person singular
regular	(to) work	work	worked	worked	working	works
irregular	(to) sing (to) make (to) cut	sing make cut	sang made cut	sung made cut	singing making cutting	sings makes cuts
	(to) do* (to) have*	do have	did had	done had	doing having	does has
	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple
	(to) be*	be	was, were	been	being	am, are, is

In the above examples:

to cut has 4 forms: to cut, cut, cutting, cuts

to work has 5 forms: to work, work, worked, working, works

to sing has 6 forms: to sing, sing, sang, sung, singing, sings

to be has 9 forms: to be, be, was, were, been, being, am, is, are

The infinitive can be with or without to. For example, to sing and sing are both infinitives. We often call the infinitive without to the "bare infinitive".s

At school, students usually learn by heart the base, past simple and past participle (sometimes called V1, V2, V3, meaning Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3) for the
irregular verbs. They may spend many hours chanting: sing, sang, sung; go, went, gone; have, had, had; etc.
They do not learn these for the regular verbs
because the past simple and past participle are always the same: they are formed by adding "-ed" to the base. They do not learn the present participle and 3rd person singular present simple by heart—for another very simple reason: they never change.
The present participle is always made by adding "-ing" to the base, and the 3rd person singular present simple is always made by adding "s" to the base (though there are some variations in spelling).
* Note that "do", "have" and "be" also function as helping or auxiliary verbs, with exactly the same forms (except that as helping verbs they are never in infinitive form).

Example Sentences
These example sentences use main verbs in different forms.

Infinitive,

I want to work

He has to sing.

This exercise is easy to do.

Let him have one.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Base - Imperative

Work well!

Make this.

Have a nice day.

Be quiet!

Base - Present simple
(except 3rd person singular)

I work in London.

You sing well.

They have a lot of money.

Base - After modal auxiliary verbs

I can work tomorrow.

You must sing louder.

They might do it.

You could be right.

Past simple

I worked yesterday.

She cut his hair last week.

They had a good time.

They were surprised, but I was not.

Past participle

I have worked here for five years.

He needs a folder made of plastic.

It is done like this.

I have never been so happy.

Present participle

I am working.

Singing well is not easy.

Having finished, he went home.

You are being silly!

3rd person singular, present simple

He works in London.

She sings well.

She has a lot of money.

It is Vietnamese.