Pronunciation of Past Regular Verbs (Revision)

http://learn-english.wonderhowto.com/how-to/pronounce-past-tense-regular-verbs-english-234196/

The past of regular verbs

Scott pushed his car to the gas station.	Pat and Jody participated in a motorcycle rally.

The verbs ‘to push’ and ‘to participate’ are regular in the past. That is to say that they end in ‘ed’.

People always push on the subway.  Somebody pushed me yesterday.

I rarely participate in the company activities, but I participated in the basketball league last year.

Notice the three forms:

Question: What time did you receive the package?

Negative: I didn’t receive any packages yesterday.

Affirmative: I received it at 12:00

So, when we use the auxiliary verb ‘did/didn’t’, the main verb does not change to its past form. Only in affirmative do we use ‘ed’.

The tricky part of learning the past of regular verbs is the pronunciation. There is a saying that we sometimes use as a general guideline (It’s actually cheating a little)

Ted is dead, the rest with T.

This means that if a verb ends in ‘T’, ‘TE’ or ‘D’, ‘DE’, you pronounce the ‘ed’ as an extra syllable, a sound like ‘ted’ or ‘dead’. 

Want – wanted [uanted]

Participate - participated [partisipaitid]

Add – added [áded]

Trade – traded [traidid]

All the rest are pronounced in a more compact way with a light ‘T’ sound (and this is where you cheat a little, as some have more of a light ‘D’ sound).

Ask – asked [askt]

Push – pushed [pusht]

Play – played [pleit]

Receive – received [reseivt]