What Is a Conjugated Verb?

If youve ever taken a second language class, youve heard a lot about
conjugated verbs and verb conjugations. In short, a conjugated verb is a verb
that has been altered from its base form; but, as with all things grammar-related,
its a little more complicated than that. Lets take a look at how verbs are
conjugated and the different things they communicate when they are.

Defining a Conjugated Verb

Conjugated verbs are verbs which have been changed to communicate one or
more of the following: person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, or voice.
Those will be explained in detail in just a moment: but first, heres an example of
the verb break conjugated in several different ways.

Present Simple
I, You, We, They: break
He, She, It: breaks

Present Continuous (Progressive)

I: am breaking
You, We, They: are breaking
He, She, It: is breaking

Present Perfect
I, You, We, They: have broken
He, She, It: has broken

Past Simple
I, You, We, They, He, She, It: broke

Past Continuous
I, He, She, It: was breaking
You, We, They: were breaking

Past Perfect

I, You, We, They, He, She, It: had broken

As you can see, each different conjugation changes break from its base form to
tell us when and by whom the action takes place.

Conjugated Verbs Communicate

A verb conjugation can communicate a lot of detail about a verb such as:

Person
Its a bit redundant in English because we almost always state a subject explicitly
in our sentences, but still, our conjugated verbs often go with specific subjects.
For example, am is a present tense conjugation of the verb be, and it is the
form that goes with the subject I. Using I (or we) also indicates that the
speaker is speaking in first person as opposed to second person (you) or third
person (he, she, it, they).

Number
It is perhaps clearer in other languages, but conjugated verbs in English can also
sometimes tell us something about how many people are participating in the
action of the verb. For example, singular subjects (he, she, it) in the present
simple tense have an s added to them when conjugated:
He sings.
She reads.
It rains.
Plural subjects (you, we, they) do not have an s on the end:
You sing.
We read.
They play.
English is a little tricky here because you can be singular or plural, but in other
languages, the differentiation between singular and plural subjects is very clear
in the conjugated verb endings.

Gender
In some languages, though not English, conjugated verbs can indicate the
gender of the subject.

Tense

The verb tense indicates the time at which the action of the verb takes place.
Past tense verbs, for example, tell us that the action took place in the past.
Present tense indicates the action is happening at this very moment, or that it
happens regularly in the present state of things, or that it is true up to the
present moment.
Aspect
The aspect of a verb tells us the degree to which it is completed. There are
continuous (or progressive) aspects that tell us the action is in progress, there
are perfect aspects that tell us the action is complete up to a certain point in
time, and there are simple aspects that are just that simple.

Mood
The mood is like the purpose of the sentence in which a verb is used. The stative
mood, for example, is used to make a statement. The interrogative mood is for
questions. And the conditional mood is for sentences that pose hypothetical
scenarios and the outcomes that depend on them.

Voice
Youve probably heard people talk about active and passive voice. In active
voice, the verb indicates that the subject of the sentence is the one doing the
action. In passive voice, the subject is the recipient of the action done by
someone/something else.

A conjugated verb is a well-explained verb.