Today I’m doing a quick win lesson to help you with the pronunciation of regular past tenses.
You may be thinking, well this is quite basic! And it’s true, the construction of the past tense, is straightforward and is generally done by adding -d or -ed to the verb. Ok!
The tricky part is getting the pronunciation right, and it’s something that even high-level students can make mistakes with. Getting it right is a quick way to sounding more fluent and more like a native speaker. In other words, it’s a really good way to sound more natural.
I hope you find it useful and helpful.
Without further ado, let’s get to it!
How to pronounce the past tense “the -ED” like a native speaker!
Common past tense regular verbs wordlist
How to pronounce the past tense
Voiceless Last Sound of the Infinitive (say ‘ed’ as ‘t’)
- asked
- baked
- brushed
- cooked
- cracked
- crashed
- danced
- dressed
- dropped
- escaped
- finished
- fixed
- guessed
- helped
- hiked
- hoped
- joked
- jumped
- kissed
- knocked
- laughed
- locked
- looked
- missed
- mixed
- packed
- passed
- picked
- pressed
- pronounced
- pushed
- relaxed
- shopped
- slipped
- smoked
- stopped
- talked
- typed
- walked
- washed
- watched
- worked
Voiced Last Sound of the Infinitive (say ‘ed’ as ‘d’)
- advised
- agreed
- allowed
- answered
- appeared
- arrived
- believed
- belonged
- burned
- called
- carried
- changed
- cleaned
- closed
- covered
- cried
- damaged
- described
- died
- dried
- earned
- encouraged
- enjoyed
- entered
- explained
- explored
- filled
- followed
- happened
- imagined
- interviewed
- jailed
- killed
- listened
- lived
- loved
- measured
- moved
- opened
- planned
- played
- performed
- pulled
- rained
- realised
- remembered
- repaired
- saved
- shared
- shaved
- showed
- signed
- slammed
- stayed
- snowed
- studied
- travelled
- tried
- turned
- used
- welcomed
- whispered
- worried
- yawned
T or D as the Last Sound of the Infinitive (say ‘ed’ as ‘id’)
- accepted
- afforded
- arrested
- attended
- collected
- contacted
- counted
- decided
- defended
- demanded
- divided
- ended
- expanded
- expected
- exported
- flooded
- graduated
- hated
- hunted
- included
- invented
- invited
- landed
- needed
- painted
- planted
- presented
- pretended
- printed
- protected
- provided
- rented
- repeated
- reported
- respected
- rested
- scolded
- shouted
- skated
- started
- treated
- visited
- waited
- wanted
- wasted
