Past Tense of Listen: Definition & Examples
The past tense of “listen” is listened. Since “listen” is a regular verb, its past tense follows the usual “-ed” rule.
Read on to learn more about the verb “listen.”
What Does Listen Mean?
To listen means to pay attention to sound or someone speaking. When you listen, you actively focus on hearing and understanding a sound or what is being said or played.
The verb “to listen” is used in everyday situations, whether it’s listening to music, someone talking, or nature sounds. If you focus on what you hear, you listen.
In the present simple tense, “listen” has two forms: listen and listens. You use “listen” with subjects like “I,” “you,” “we,” and “they.” For example:
- I listen to the radio every morning.
- They listen carefully during class discussions.
For third-person singular subjects (he, she, it), you add “s” to form listens. Here are some examples:
- He listens to podcasts on his way to work.
- She listens to her favorite songs before bed.
The Past Tense of Listen
The past tense of “listen” is listened. As with most regular verbs, the past tense is formed by adding “-ed” to the base form. For example:
- Yesterday, I listened to an audiobook on my commute.
- She listened to the teacher’s instructions carefully during the exam.
It’s important to remember that regular verbs like “listen” add “-ed” in the past tense, so “listened” is the correct form. However, this will be different for irregular verbs.
Listened is pronounced like this: /ˈlɪs.ənd/. It rhymes with “glistened” and “hastened.”
The Past Participle of Listen
The past participle of listen is listened. The past participle form is used with auxiliary verbs to form perfect tenses (present perfect, past perfect) or passive voice constructions. It doesn’t typically stand alone. For example:
- Present Perfect: I have listened to this album many times.
- Past Perfect: She had listened to the advice before making her decision.
- Passive Voice: The lecture was listened to by a large audience.
The past participle “listened” remains the same regardless of the subject or tense when used with auxiliary verbs.
Important Note
Listened is both the past simple form and the past participle form of “listen.”
In the case of regular verbs like “listen,” the past simple and the past participle forms are always the same, unlike irregular verbs, which often have different forms for the past simple and past participle.
When to Use Listened
Here’s when you can use “listened”:
Past Simple and “Listened”
In the past simple tense, you use “listened” to describe an action that happened and was completed in the past. It often has a specific time reference. For example:
- I listened to the news this morning.
Here, “listened” is the past simple form used to describe a completed action.
You can use “listened” in positive sentences, but in negative sentences, you use the base form “listen” with “didn’t” instead of “listened.”
- Positive: I listened to the presentation yesterday.
- Negative: I didn’t listen to the announcement.
So, in negative sentences, we use this formula: subject + didn’t + listen.
Present Perfect and “Listened”
The present perfect tense combines “have” or “has” with the past participle of the verb. In this case, the past participle of “listen” is listened. This tense refers to actions that happened at some point in the past but have relevance to the present. For example:
- I have listened to every episode of that podcast.
- She has listened to all the advice her mentor gave.
This uses the formula: subject + have/has + listened.
In negative sentences, you use “haven’t” or “hasn’t” with “listened” instead:
- I haven’t listened to the latest song yet.
- He hasn’t listened to the instructions carefully.
Past Perfect and “Listened”
The past perfect tense is used to describe an action completed before another action in the past. To form this tense, you use “had” with the past participle listened. Here are some examples:
- By the time the meeting started, I had listened to all the reports.
- They had listened to the album before it was officially released.
For affirmative sentences like these, we use this formula: subject + had + listened.
For negative sentences in the past perfect, use “hadn’t” with “listened“:
- I hadn’t listened to the advice before the interview.
- She hadn’t listened to that speaker before the event.
Conclusion
To summarize, the past tense of “listen” is listened, and the past participle is also listened. You use listened, have/has listened, or had listened, depending on the context. Each form helps you describe when the listening took place.
Hopefully, this has taught you everything you need to know about the past tense of “listen”!
What next?
If you’d like to learn more about the past tense of other study related verbs, you might want to check out:
