Three different verbs: to lay, to lie
and to lie To lay is a verb that commonly means to put or place something or someone (a baby or yourself for instance) in a horizontal position or to place something somewhere. As an action verb it will have a direct object (something or someone that receives the action). If the verb expresses an activity and has a direct object it is called a transitive verb. To lay - laid - laid (laying). Similar to the Danish verb: at lægge - lagde - lagt. Examples "to lay":
Fold the blanket and lay it on the sofa. To lie is a verb that often describes an animal or person being in a horizontal or resting position or a thing being kept in a certain place. It cannot take a direct object and is neither an action nor a transitive verb - hence called an intransitive verb. To lie - lay - lain (lying) Similar to the Danish verb: at ligge - lå - ligget. Examples "to lie": I lie
down (resting, now). The confusing bit is that the past tense of "to lie" is "lay", which is the infinitive and makes the present tense of "lay" - remember this. Exercise here - more exercises at quistmedia.dk To lie -
lied - lied (lying) means not to tell the truth but a made-up version or
story. It is a regular verb (the basic form
"lie" conjugated by adding -ed, but in this case only the -d as
it already ends on an -e). The "ie" is changed to "y" when you add the
suffix -ing.
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