Every sentence has an engine. Find the engine and the rest of the sentence tells you what it is doing.
Not started yet.
By the end of this lesson a student should be able to find the verb in a sentence and say whether it is an action verb or a being verb. An action verb tells what someone or something does, and that action can be physical, like run, jump or open, or it can happen in the mind, like think, remember or understand. A being verb tells what someone or something is or was instead of showing an action, and there are only eight of them: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being. Compare "The dog chased the ball" with "The dog is tired". In the first, chased tells what the dog did. In the second, is tells us something about the dog.
Verbs are the hinge everything later swings on. Tense is a verb changing to show time. Subject-verb agreement is a verb changing to match who is doing it. Sentence types, clauses, and eventually essay writing all assume a student can find the verb without thinking about it. A student who is shaky here is shaky in every grammar lesson after it, and usually nobody notices, because the later lessons look like they are about something else.
A word's job can change depending on the sentence, and this is where students lose the thread. In "We walk to school", walk is an action verb. In "The walk was long", walk is a noun and the verb is was. Most students hunt for a word that sounds like doing something, which works until the verb is is, was or are and then they freeze or grab a noun. It comes from teaching "a verb is an action word", which is not true, and it is why so many students stall on this exact page.
A verb tells what the subject does, or what the subject is.
Verbs come in two kinds. An action verb says something happens: ran, built, decided, forgot. A being verb says something simply is: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being. Being verbs do not act. They join the subject to what it is, the way an equals sign joins two sides of a sum.
Run this test. TWO TESTS, TWO JOBS. To FIND the verb, put Yesterday in front of the sentence and read it again — the one word that has to change shape is the verb. To NAME its kind, ask: is someone or something doing something, or is the sentence telling me what someone or something is? Doing means an action verb. Is or was means a being verb. Action means DO. Being means IS.
Press play to have it read to you. The line being read lights up, so you can follow along.
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Five done for you. The underlined word is the verb, and the line under it says how you could have known.
The mechanic tightened the bolt.
The mechanic is doing something, and you could watch it happen. Tightened is the verb, and it is an action verb.
The hall is enormous.
Nobody is doing anything here. The sentence is telling you what the hall is, and is connects hall with enormous. That makes is a being verb.
He forgot his umbrella.
You cannot watch someone forget, but forgetting is still something he did. Not every action is one you can see.
The journey was long.
The trap. Journey looks like something you do, but here nobody is journeying. It is the name of a thing that was long, so the verb is was.
Those students are ready.
A being verb again. Are tells you what the students are. Notice it is are and not is, because students is more than one. That is agreement, and it is coming later.
Two parts, like a worksheet. Part A asks which word is the verb. Part B asks what kind of verb it is. A wrong answer tells you why and lets you try again, so nothing here counts against you.
10 sentences. Click the verb in each one. A wrong click tells you why and lets you try again.
6 more sentences, and the verb is underlined for you. Decide whether it is an action verb or a being verb.