VERBS

[rubah]

Let's talk about the irregular English verb "to be".

How irregular is it? CRAZY IRREGULAR!(!!!!!!!!!)
I am
[Thou art]
He is
We are
You are
They are

I was
[Thou wert]
He was
We were
You were
They were

What makes this verb so special >:[

[Tavrobel]

Because it is to be. You can't do anything else without being (except NOT BEING LOLOLOLOLOL).

Thou is old-school for informal second-person speech. Plus, there's many other verbs that are way more irregular than to be.

[rubah]

well let's talk about them!

[The Ceej]

How can you have a verb
When there's nothing altered?
How can you do something
When it's done to nothing?
It's not when you blink your eyes
Or when you wash your hair
How can you get it done?
It can be done anywhere

Oh, I really should have known
By the time that I was grown
See the blank stare in my eyes?
You knew by the time that you were five
You think I'm a mental case
By the expression on your face
Maybe you might have
Some advice to give
How a verb can be
Intransitive
Intransitive
Intransitive


©2001 The Ceej

[Breine]

Ugh, I hate irregular verbs when it comes to foreign languages (other than English, though).

[Værn]

Let's talk about the irregular English verb "to be".

How irregular is it? CRAZY IRREGULAR!(!!!!!!!!!)
I am
[Thou art]
He is
We are
You are
They are

I was
[Thou wert]
He was
We were
You were
They were

What makes this verb so special >:[
It's not special if you're a pirate =)

Arrr! Ye be walkin' the plank next, matey!

[scrumpleberry]

Ugh, I hate irregular verbs when it comes to foreign languages (other than English, though).

They were sent to frustrate us.

I frustrate
You frustrate
She frustrates
We frustrate
You frustrate
They frustrate

Dude, what a beautifully easy verb.

To be. The obvious thing to do is go off on a Hamlet tangent. I still don't know the past formation of it in ancient Greek, which I was supposed to as of September...must larn it.


(except NOT BEING LOLOLOLOLOL).


You still need being to express that in english, though. "Not" on it's own could mean anything LOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLLLLLLL-

*is hit on head with mallet for being pedantic*

I agree with ya, though.

[Araciel]

It's the most irregular because it's probably the most common and important verb. By virtue of it's necessary use alone, it is easy to learn even for people who have English as a second language, as they are bombarded with it at all times.

[rubah]

is is is is are

oh wait one less is; you had an extra apostrophe:(

[Jessweeee♪]

I'm so glad I natively speak English, it'd be a real pain to learn it xD

[Namelessfengir]

you've not known Shakespeare until you've read it in the original klingon

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

taH pagh taHbe'. DaH mu'tlheghvam vIqelnIS.
quv'a', yabDaq San vaQ cha, pu' je SIQDI'?
pagh, Seng bIQ'a'Hey SuvmeH nuHmey SuqDI',
'ej, Suvmo', rInmoHDI'? Hegh. Qong --- Qong neH ---
'ej QongDI', tIq 'oy', wa'SanID Daw''e' je
cho'nISbogh porghDaj rInmoHlaH net Har.

[Moon Rabbits]

Ugh, I hate irregular verbs when it comes to foreign languages (other than English, though).

Yeah. I really quite enjoy the way Latin handles verbs, principle parts and stems and participles and all. Most of the time, if you can make these, it's no problem conjugating verbs. This allows single verbs to represent the person performing the action, the tense of the action, and what action is being performed. I don't know if this is an aspect of languages outside English, but I think it's a really interesting (and convenient) idea.

But ... to be is irregular in Latin too. Very. smurfing. Irregular.


Present Tense
Singular Plural
1 sum sumus
2 es estis
3 est sunt
Imperfect Tense
Singular Plural
1 eram eramus
2 eras eratis
3 erat erant
Future Tense
Singular Plural
1 ero erimus
2 eris eritis
3 erit erunt
Perfect Tense
Singular Plural
1 fui fuimus
2 fuisti fuistis
3 fuit fuerunt


And then there's the Pluperfect tense, Future Perfect Tense, Infinitives and participles, and the subjunctive and imperative moods ...

I wonder, is to be like this in a lot of languages?

[rubah]

oh yeah I remember that weird fuisti stuff when we were learning ser in spanish.

[Tavrobel]

oh yeah I remember that weird fuisti stuff when we were learning ser in spanish.

No, please don't remind me about that. All those different changes. The Present tense was the worst out of all of them. At least the other forms had regular patterns, just unique constructions.

Anyone else know the conjugations for "to be" in any other languages? Preferably not Indo-European. We know how those work.

[rubah]

mga na pipino.

[The Unknown Guru]

Ugh. English is such a dumb language.

On topic (kinda): This thread gives me an excuse to conjugate "shank". I did this once in my English class. It was awesome. If you need to conjugate a verb in your English class, conjugate shank. It will be awesome.

I shank.
You shank.
He shanks.

I have shanked.
You have shanked.
He has shanked.

Future perfect!!
We will have shanked.
You will have shanked.
They will have shanked.

[Montoya]

Ghoeti.

[Randgris]

mga na pipino.

translation: The Cucumbers (the "na" commonly follows an adjective: mga hilaw na pipino)

:love:

[Big D]

'To be' is pretty irregular, it reminds of its equivalent in German, which is 'sein'.

Ich (I) bin
Du (you) bist
Er/sie/es (he/she/it) ist
Wir (we) sind
Ihr (they) seid
Sie/sie (you [formal]/you [plural]) sind

Compare it to 'gehen' - 'to go':

Ich gehe
Du gehst
Er/sie/es geht
Wir gehen
Ihr geht
Sie/sie gehen

Regular verbs are good, they make language nice and formulaic and easy to learn... the irregular kind are just there to make things difficult :aimmad:

[Tavrobel]

Maybe languages have evolved so that irregular verbs are the ones that you NEED to know. After all, there needs to be a way to differentiate them. Well, with regular, it's like, "ohh those are regular, I can't screw those up" and then you get to "to be" and it goes "ohh SNAP there's TWO of them?"

Or our ancestors were sadistic pigs. Either way.

[rubah]

mga na pipino.

translation: The Cucumbers (the "na" commonly follows an adjective: mga hilaw na pipino)

:love:

Would you like to read a story a friend of mine wrote?

[Jojee]

One of my TAs this semester gets mad whenever we use that verb more than a few times in any of our essays. Just let us be free, dude =(

[Heath]

'To be' is pretty irregular, it reminds of its equivalent in German, which is 'sein'.

Ich (I) bin
Du (you) bist
Er/sie/es (he/she/it) ist
Wir (we) sind
Ihr (they) seid
Sie/sie (you [formal]/you [plural]) sind

Compare it to 'gehen' - 'to go':

Ich gehe
Du gehst
Er/sie/es geht
Wir gehen
Ihr geht
Sie/sie gehen

Regular verbs are good, they make language nice and formulaic and easy to learn... the irregular kind are just there to make things difficult :aimmad:

I was going to give the example of German too. Though in all honesty, I think sein is probably the easiest irregular verb to deal with because you use it so much. After a while (before even covering the grammar around it) it's just natural to say "ich bin," "du bist," and so on.

Regardless of that, regular verbs are a lot nicer to deal with in any language. Naturally I don't have much trouble with them in English because I'm fluent and it's just something you know as a native speaker, but when learning other languages it makes life simpler.