Instead they use other words in the sentence to show when the verb happens.

It is the main part of a sentence: every sentence has a verb.

In English, verbs are the only kind of word that changes to show past or present tense.

They also can have different properties in different languages.

In some other languages ( Chinese Indonesian, for example) verbs do not change for past and present tense.

This means the definition above only works well for English verbs.

They are: be, do, have, come, go, see, seem, give, take, keep, make, put, send, say, let, get.

It comes to English through the Latin verbum and the Old French verbe.

However, the verb may be a phrase: The cat will sit on the mat.

There seem to be three verbal phrases here, which mean something like Sorry, I must go soon.

Most English verbs have six inflected forms (see the table), but be has eight different forms.

For example, the plain present and the plain form of walk have the same shape.

But these different forms can have different shapes in other verbs.

For example, the plain present of be is usually are but the plain form is be.

Also, the past of eat is ate, but the past participle is eaten.

When you look for a verb in the dictionary, it is usually the plain form that you look for.

The difference between them is mainly in where they can go in a sentence.

Some verbs are in both groups, but there are very few auxiliary verbs in English.

There are also two kinds of auxiliary verbs: modal verbs and non-modal verbs.

The table below shows most of the English auxiliaries and a small number of other verbs.

It does not really change the meaning, but it can be used to make a strong statement.

This is called inversion and it usually means the sentence is a question.

They use the simple present for do, and the simple past or perfect for did.

In order to explain and understand tense, it is useful to imagine time as a line on which past tense, present tense and future tense are positioned.

Chinese and Indonesian verbs do not show tense.

Verb Forms With Malayalam Meaning