Verb Forms

Every English verb has three forms — V1 (go), V2 (went), V3 (gone) — plus the -ing form. The question is only ever which form the word in front of it demands.

1. After do / does / did → V1. The auxiliary already carries the tense, so the main verb goes bare: "He did not go", "Did she come?"
2. After have / has / had → V3. "They have written", "She had gone."
3. After was / were / is / am / are → V3 for the passive, -ing for the continuous. "The letter was written" (passive) vs "He was writing" (continuous).
4. After a modal — can, may, must, should, will → V1. "You must submit", never "must to submit".

Learn the irregular pairs the paper loves: lie–lay–lain (to rest) against lay–laid–laid (to place); rise–rose–risen against raise–raised–raised; fall–fell–fallen against fell–felled–felled; and write–wrote–written, break–broke–broken, choose–chose–chosen, drink–drank–drunk.

The single most common mistake is doubling the past — "He did not went", "Did you saw him?", "She has came". The tense marker sits on the auxiliary and nowhere else. How to spot it: if the sentence already has did, does, have, has or a modal, look at the main verb; the moment you find a second past form, you have found the error.

do/does/did → V1 · have/has/had → V3 · is/was/were + V3 = passive, + V-ing = continuous · modal → V1 (no "to") · one tense marker per clause: "did not go", never "did not went"

Spot the error: "She did not attended the meeting yesterday." → The auxiliary "did" already carries the past tense, so the main verb must be V1: "She did not attend the meeting yesterday." Sanity check: turn the sentence positive — "She attended the meeting" is correct with V2, and the moment "did" appears, that V2 has to fall back to V1.