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Verbs: Subject-verb agreement:

Reminder: The subject of a sentence is who or what is doing the action.

In grammar, there are three types of subject – called the three persons. Let’s have
a look at these in turn:

‘First person’ is ‘I’ (singular) or ‘we’ (plural).
‘Second person’ is ‘you’ (singular or plural).
‘Third person’ is ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’ (singular) or ‘they’ (plural).

As you have seen, verbs change their form according to the subject. They usually add
an ‘s’ for third person singular:

I talk you talk he talks she talks it talks we talk you talk they talk

Some verbs do not obey the rules (irregular), so watch out for these.

Examples: I am you are she is we are you are they are
I was you were he was we were you were they were
I have you have it has we have you have they have

So, always make sure you use the correct form of the verb for the subject of
your sentence (subject-verb agreement). Check for this when you proofread.

No – that’s not right,

Kate and Gary it should be ‘Kate and
was watching
TV. Gary were watching
TV’

Sometimes, when writing reports, formal essays or instructions your teacher may ask
you to write in the THIRD PERSON. To do this, avoid using ‘I’, or ‘we’. Look at the
examples below:

I set up the equipment as shown in the diagram. I lit INCORRECT!
the bunsen burner and then we recorded the This is written
temperature of the water every two minutes. using ‘first person’.
(I).
The equipment was set up as shown in the diagram.
The bunsen burner was lit and the temperature of the CORRECT!
This is written using
water was recorded every two minutes. ‘third person’.

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