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With over 40 years of teaching between us, we’ll help you improve your English and take it to the next level.

In this episode: The ‘-ed’ ending on past regular verbs

Listener Feedback: Anonymous (audio feedback) Hola. Mucho gusto estar normalmente en el aire. We are the champions. We…Come on baby. Yes. Goodnight!

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Franz Jhonny Jallasi:

Hello Craig and Reza. I would like to ask something. How can I pronounce these words in the past tense?

to change, to follow, to play, to kidnap (secuestrar, raptar) , to murder, to peek (to look quickly – dar un vistazo, a peek=ojeada, vistazo – echar una ojeada or miradita)

“The baby was sleeping so we just peeked in the window.”
“No peeking!” – ¡Sin mirar!

I live in Bolivia, La Paz Ive been working like (as) a locksmith and studing English for two years and a half (two and a half years)
I always follow you in your podcasts, I would like it very much if you never stop your grammar explanations.
Please go on with your help (it) is very kind of you.
Good bye and please continue with your podcasts.

Pronunciation – The ‘-ed’ endings on past regular verbs

The –ed ending is added to regular verbs in the simple past and the past participle.

It can be difficult to pronounce correctly, even at advanced level.

Luckily, there are some guidelines to help you pronounce this correctly.

There are three different ways to pronounce the –ed ending. However, the majority of endings have the ‘e’ as silent. It is not often pronounced.

Two words in which the ‘e’ is pronounced are ‘started’ and ‘collided’.

If the final sound of the infinitive is a /t/ or a /d/ sound, the ‘e’ is pronounced. For example, want – wanTED. Need – neeDED.

1./t/ after voiceless sounds (you can identify a voiceless sound by putting your hand on your head or your throat and checking for vibration. If there’s no vibration, it’s a voiceless sound).

Examples of voiceless sounds are:

/p/ – play
/s/ – say
/th/ – three
/ch/ – chips
/h/ – hello
/sh/ – wash

Here are some verbs that end with the /t/ sound after a voiceless sound:

helped
boxed
asked
impressed
pushed
laughed

2./d/ after a voiced sound (voiced sounds can be identified by feeling vibration when you place your hand on your head or your throat).

Here are some examples:

/j/ – July
/d/ – dad
/g/ – give
/b/ – baby
/th/ – these
/n/ – nine

Here are some verbs that end with the /d/ sound after a voiced sound:

poured
explained
tried
robbed
required
stayed

3. /Id/ after the sounds /d/ and /t/:
added
wanted
needed
ended
confided
inflated
acted

Listen and repeat the 3 groups with Reza and I.

Now choose the correct –ed sound for the words that Franz suggested:

to change – changed
to follow – followed
to peek – peek
to play – pleyed
to kidnap – kidnapped
to murder – murdered

try some more:

start – started
live – lived
watch – watched
kiss – kissed
visit – visited
laugh – laughed
end – ended
edit – edited
love – loved
park – parked
record – recorded

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In next week’s episode we’ll be talking about common mistakes made by Spanish speakers.

The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’