Know The Difference Between Began And Begun

A lot of people use ‘Began’ and ‘Begun’ interchangeably. The both sounds past tense to them. Well, there is a great difference between these two words even though they are both forms of the same word.

They are both forms of the verb “to begin.” To begin is an irregular verb, which means the past tense is not made by adding -ed to the end. Rather, the form of the verb changes in some other way. Began is the past tense, while begun is the past participle.

Begun

We use begun with some form of the helping verb “have” in front of it: has begun, have begun, had begun. This means, whenever you have the word ‘have, had or had in your sentence, begun is being used”.

Began

When there are no have, has or had in your sentence, then began is used.

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Examples

1. Unpaid bills began to pile up alarmingly.

Unpaid bills have begun to pile up alarmingly.

2. I began by commiserating with her over the defeat.

3. The path began to climb quite steeply.

4. The whole saga began back in May.

5. She began to harp us to drink after dinner

6. They began making overtures to the Irish government.

7. A light rain began to fall.

8. They swam till the tide began to ebb.

9. The French began to assemble an army.

10. The audience began clapping and cheering.

11. At last the rain began to ease off.

12. The carpenters began to floor the room.

13. The animal began to sicken and soon died.

14. During October 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to disintegrate.

15. The plane began its descent into Paris.

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We hope this article has helped you to know the differences now. Don’t forget to join our WhatsApp groups and other social media channels for more education news and other trending stories.