Các dạng của động từ
Dạng nguyên
/seɪ/
Past Simple
/sed/
Past Participle
/sed/
Câu ví dụ
Dạng nguyên · say
- People say this restaurant serves the best pasta in town.
Past Simple · said
- She said goodbye and walked out the door.
- He didn't say anything at the meeting.
- Did you say it before lunch?
- I said it as soon as I possibly could.
Past Participle · said
- Everything that needed to be said has been said.
- We have never said anything quite like it.
- He has said it many times before.
- I have already said it more than once.
Cụm từ thường gặp
say hello
to greet someone
say sorry
to apologise
say a few words
to make a short speech
Thì chính
| Hiện tại đơn | Quá khứ đơn | Hiện tại hoàn thành |
|---|---|---|
I say he / she / it says | I said | I have said |
| Hiện tại tiếp diễn:I am saying · he / she / it is saying | ||
Hướng dẫn ngữ pháp
The verb "say" follows the ABB pattern: the past simple and past participle share one form ("said"), while the base form ("say") 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 "said" 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 said the whole report by herself." The action is seen as finished and anchored to a specific past time.
The past participle "said" always works together with an auxiliary verb. It appears in: (1) the present perfect with have/has — "I have said this several times before"; (2) the past perfect with had — "By the time we called, they had already said"; (3) passive voice — "The decision was said by the board." Never use "said" as a standalone past-tense verb without an auxiliary.
Memory tip: because "said" and "said" 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 "say" belongs to can make the form easier to remember long-term.
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