Verb forms
Base form
/brɪŋ/
Past Simple
/brɔːt/
Past Participle
/brɔːt/
Example sentences
Base form · bring
- Students bring their own laptops to class.
Past Simple · brought
- He brought flowers to the dinner party.
- They brought it again the following morning.
- He didn't bring anything at the meeting.
- Did you bring it before lunch?
Past Participle · brought
- The internet has brought people closer together.
- I have already brought it more than once.
- She has just brought the very same thing.
- By the time we arrived, they had brought everything.
Common collocations
bring up
to raise a topic, or to raise a child
bring back
to return something or revive a memory
Key tenses
| Present Simple | Past Simple | Present Perfect |
|---|---|---|
I bring he / she / it brings | I brought | I have brought |
| Present Continuous:I am bringing · he / she / it is bringing | ||
Grammar guide
The verb "bring" follows the ABB pattern: the past simple and past participle share one form ("brought"), while the base form ("bring") 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 "brought" 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 brought the whole report by herself." The action is seen as finished and anchored to a specific past time.
The past participle "brought" always works together with an auxiliary verb. It appears in: (1) the present perfect with have/has — "I have brought this several times before"; (2) the past perfect with had — "By the time we called, they had already brought"; (3) passive voice — "The decision was brought by the board." Never use "brought" as a standalone past-tense verb without an auxiliary.
Memory tip: because "brought" and "brought" 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 "bring" belongs to can make the form easier to remember long-term.
Quick quiz
Which sentence is correct?
Conjugation pattern
The past simple and the past participle share the same form.