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Reading Newspaper
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News Cameras
Political Figure

Unit 4. THE MASS MEDIA

Pronouncing Past Tense Verbs

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The past simple tense and past participle of all regular verbs end in -ed. For example:

work, worked, worked

In addition, many adjectives are made from the past participle and so end in -ed. For example:

I like painted furniture.

The question is, how do we pronounce the -ed? The answer is, in 3 ways:

  • /ɪd/

  • /t/

  • /d/

pronun.png

* Note that it is the sound that is important, not the letter or spelling. For example, fax ends in the letter x but the sound /s/; like ends in the letter e but the sound /k/.

[Exceptions] The following -ed words used as adjectives are pronounced with /ɪd/

ageddogged, ragged, blessed, learned, wicked, crooked, naked, wretched

Listen and repeat each three-word series. Choose ONE word in each group that has a different -ed sound than the others. 

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