Formas del verbo
Forma base
/miːt/
Past Simple
/met/
Past Participle
/met/
Frases de ejemplo
Forma base · meet
- We meet for coffee every Friday afternoon.
Past Simple · met
- I met my best friend in primary school.
- She met without any hesitation.
- They met it again the following morning.
- He didn't meet anything at the meeting.
Past Participle · met
- Have you met the new neighbours yet?
- By the time we arrived, they had met everything.
- We have never met anything quite like it.
- He has met it many times before.
Colocaciones comunes
meet a deadline
to finish something on time
meet halfway
to reach a compromise
Tiempos clave
| Presente Simple | Pasado Simple | Presente Perfecto |
|---|---|---|
I meet he / she / it meets | I met | I have met |
| Presente Continuo:I am meeting · he / she / it is meeting | ||
Guía gramatical
The verb "meet" follows the ABB pattern: the past simple and past participle share one form ("met"), while the base form ("meet") 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 "met" 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 met the whole report by herself." The action is seen as finished and anchored to a specific past time.
The past participle "met" always works together with an auxiliary verb. It appears in: (1) the present perfect with have/has — "I have met this several times before"; (2) the past perfect with had — "By the time we called, they had already met"; (3) passive voice — "The decision was met by the board." Never use "met" as a standalone past-tense verb without an auxiliary.
Memory tip: because "met" and "met" 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 "meet" belongs to can make the form easier to remember long-term.
Mini test
¿Qué oración es correcta?
Patrón de conjugación
El pasado simple y el participio pasado comparten la misma forma.