My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

participle:
lov ing , bit ing .
(Note that if a verb ends in e , we drop the e to form the present participle. If not,
we just add -ing : wanting , hanging , staggering , etc.).
Because this is English, however, there are, inevitably, lots of irregular verbs .
Some past tenses and past participles are formed by adding -t instead of -ed (see

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below). Then we have to drink, which becomes I drank, you drank , etc. in the
past tense, whereas to think becomes I thought . To speak becomes I spoke , but
to squeak and to sneak are regular and become I squeaked and I sneaked.
The most thoroughly irregular verbs of all are the common ones to be and to go :
I am , you are , he is , we are , they are , I was , you were , for heaven’s sake. To go
is OK in the present tense, but I went ? What’s that all about?
Again, it’s the irritating feature of irregular forms that there’s no apparent logic
to them and you just have to learn them .
Lessons learnt (or should that be ‘learned’?)
If  you  are  unsure  which  ending  to  give  to  the  past  tense  and  past  participle  of
irregular  verbs  such  as  burn  ,  dream  ,  lean  ,  learn  ,  and  smell  ,  you  may  be
relieved to know that it is fine to use either a -t or an -ed ending. Just make sure
you  go  for  one  or  the  other,  because  mixing  them  looks  messy.  For  the  record,
British  English  speakers  tend  to  have  learnt  their  lessons,  while  American
English speakers have learned theirs.