Troublesome and Frequently Misused Verbs

 

Welcome to today's lesson, as we continue in our series of frequently confused and misused verbs, and discuss fell  vs felt.

Click Here to begin at the first unit in this series.

There are exercises at the end of this lesson. You will be able to check your answers.

BASICS

There are many commonly misused verb forms in English.  It's not just learners of English who confuse these forms: Native speakers do, too.  We see these incorrect forms in advertisements, we read them in the lyrics of songs, we read them in novels.  We hear some of them spoken, and we may even say some of these forms ourself in conversational speech.  But when you're writing, the rules change.  Let's take a look at some of these troublesome and frequently misued verbs that we will be dealing with in this unit:

got versus have

fell versus felt

going to versus gonna

say versus tell

FELL versus FELT

FELL is commonly used incorrectly by those learning English.  Learners of English frequently write fell when they should be using felt. Let's examine this more closely.

 

  • Fell is the simple past tense form of the verb (to) fall.

  • Felt is the simple past tense form of the verb (to) feel.

MAIN VERB: BASE FORM SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE SIMPLE PAST TENSE
     
(to) feel FEEL (don't feel)

FEELS (doesn't feel)
 FELT (didn't feel)
(to) fall FALL (don't fall)

FALLS (doesn't fall)
 FELL (didn't fall)

The following sentence has errors in it. Can you correct this sentence?

My mother fell sad because I was moving to another country. But at the same time, she fell happy because I was happy.


My mother ___________  sad because I was moving to another country. But at the same time, she ___________ happy because I was happy.

Be a Grammar Geek!

 Check your answers in our Answer Key!

Next... "gonna"

In our next lesson...

We discuss going to vs 'gonna'.

So thanks for dropping by this week and remember to email us your questions about English grammar by contacting us on our blog.

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