Tag: English

Top 25 English Verbs

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, these are the 25 most commonly used verbs in English: 1. be, 2. have, 3. do, 4. say, 5. get, 6. make, 7. go, 8. know, 9. take, 10. see, 11. come, 12. think, 13. look, 14. want, 15. give, 16. use, 17. find, 18. tell, 19. ask, 20. work, 21. seem, 22. feel, 23. try, 24. leave, 25. call.

All these verbs are one-syllable words; the first two-syllable verbs are become (26th) and include (27th).
Furthermore, 20 of these 25 are Old English words, and three more, get, seem, and want, entered English from Old Norse in the early medieval period. Only try and use came from Old French.

It seems that English prefers terse, ancient words to describe actions or occurrences.

Germanic Tribes Allover

Today Germanic languages are spoken allover the world, mainly because the English language belongs to Germanic languages. In Europe, however, Germanic languages are spoken in Central and Northern Europe only.

But around AD 400 the Germanic tribes were on the move allover Europe, as can be seen in the map behind the link below.

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Got vs. Gotten

For some verbs Verbix displays “(U)” in the conjugation table of an English verb. This means that the verb form is used in the United States in particular.

On of these verbs is ‘to get‘ (see the conjugation).

While the British would say ‘I have got’, the North-American would say ‘I have gotten’. But the form ‘gotten’ is not used when it means ‘to have’. So ‘I’ve gotten the answer’ is always wrong in the U.S., too.

So when the British would say: ‘I’ve got a new boat’, ‘I’ve got interested’, ‘I’ve got off the chair’, the U.S. person would say:

  • I’ve gotten a new boat. (= obtain)
  • I’ve gotten interested. (= become)
  • I’ve gotten off the chair. (= moved)

 

The Swedish verb promota

The Swedish language keeps incorporating words from other languages, such as English for example.

Therefore it’s no surprise that the Swedish adopted the verb promota ‘to promote’, too. The new ‘Swedish’ verb appeared in the beginning of 1990’s. Like other new verbs in the Swedish language, this verb is fully regular.

The work promote originally comes from the Latin language from two separate words pro ‘forward’ and movere ‘to move’. And based on this Latin background, we find the Swedish verb promovera ‘to promote’

Links to visit:

 

Meaning of the Translation

Translation with no context
Translation with no context
Earlier Verbix versions have translations for common verbs. One problem is, however, that the translations had no context. And when translating one word in the source language can have multiple translations according to the meaning.
Translations grouped by meaning
Translations grouped by meaning

The upcoming Verbix 9 will include meaning (or context, as mentioned earlier in this article) of the translation along with the translation itself. This helps the user to choose the correct translation in the desired context.

Dictionaries typically contain the dictionary entry as follows:
  1. Headword
  2. Meaning
  3. Translation
So will Verbix 9, too.
As seen in the image, a dictionary entry can sometimes include the translation multiple times. This is the case with ‘escribir’, because it bares multiple meanings.
Translations grouped by translations
Translations grouped by translations
Therefore Verbix 9 will show the dictionary entry grouped in the following way:
  1. Headword (source term)
  2. Translation
  3. Meaning(s)
This makes the list easier to read.

Don’t Panic!

The English language has a limited number of irregular verbs. Once you learn them, it’s pretty straight-forward to conjugate all English verbs.

There are, however, a number of verbs that are regular but undergo orthographical changes. Orthographical changes are there to ensure that the pronunciation is preserved in the different forms of a verb.

’To panic’ is one of these verbs. An automated verb conjugator might conjugate the verb in past ’paniced’, but that’s wrong. The correct past is ’panicked’, so there is a ’k’ attached to the stem to preserve the pronunciation.

The dictionary of Verbix knows a half dozen of verbs that are conjugated like panic. And the past forms are marked in blue to denote the orthographic change.

In addition the built-in rules of Verbix also know orthographic rules. So, don’t panic! Verbix knows how to conjugate verbs ending in ’c’.

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