Verbformen
Grundform
/sɪt/
Past Simple
/sæt/
Past Participle
/sæt/
Beispielsätze
Grundform · sit
- We always sit at the same table in the café.
Past Simple · sat
- He sat next to me on the train.
- We sat it together earlier this week.
- She sat without any hesitation.
- They sat it again the following morning.
Past Participle · sat
- She has sat in that chair all afternoon.
- She has just sat the very same thing.
- By the time we arrived, they had sat everything.
- We have never sat anything quite like it.
Häufige Kollokationen
sit down
to take a seat
sit still
to stay without moving
Wichtige Zeiten
| Simple Present | Simple Past | Present Perfect |
|---|---|---|
I sit he / she / it sits | I sat | I have sat |
| Present Continuous:I am sitting · he / she / it is sitting | ||
Grammatikleitfaden
The verb "sit" follows the ABB pattern: the past simple and past participle share one form ("sat"), while the base form ("sit") is different. ABB is the most common pattern among English irregular verbs — roughly half of all irregulars fall here, so mastering this group pays dividends across the whole language.
Use the past simple "sat" to talk about a completed action or event at a definite moment in the past. It stands alone as the main verb — no auxiliary is needed. Common accompanying time expressions include yesterday, last week, ago, and when: "She sat the whole report by herself." The action is seen as finished and anchored to a specific past time.
The past participle "sat" always works together with an auxiliary verb. It appears in: (1) the present perfect with have/has — "I have sat this several times before"; (2) the past perfect with had — "By the time we called, they had already sat"; (3) passive voice — "The decision was sat by the board." Never use "sat" as a standalone past-tense verb without an auxiliary.
Memory tip: because "sat" and "sat" are the same, you only need to memorise one past form. Many ABB verbs follow recognisable sound shifts — a large group ends in -ought (bring→brought, buy→bought, catch→caught, fight→fought, seek→sought, teach→taught, think→thought), and another group shows a vowel shift plus -t (feel→felt, keep→kept, leave→left, mean→meant, sleep→slept). Identifying which sub-group "sit" belongs to can make the form easier to remember long-term.
Kurzes Quiz
Welcher Satz ist richtig?
Konjugationsmuster
Past Simple und Past Participle haben dieselbe Form.