Study guide: Mastering Common English Verb Pairs

📋 Course Outline

1. Abide, alight and arise
2. Awake, be and bear
3. Beat and become
4. Befall and beget
5. Begin, behold and bend
6. Beseech, bet and bid

📖 1. Abide, alight and arise

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Abide: A verb meaning to remain in a place or state, or to comply with a decision or rule.
• Alight: A verb meaning to come down from a vehicle or to land gently on something.
• Arise: A verb meaning to happen or to rise from sleep or a sitting position.

📝 Essential Points

• Abide can mean to stay in a location, as in staying in the wilderness for forty days.
• Abide can also mean to follow a decision, as in complying with judges’ decisions.
• Alight is used for stepping off a train, as in alighting from the train at Euston.
• Alight can describe a butterfly landing gently on a flower.
• Arise is used for opportunities, as in “If the opportunity arises,” and for waking up early, as in arising early in the morning.

💡 Memory Hook

Abide = stay; alight = land/step down; arise = happen or rise.

📖 2. Awake, be and bear

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Awake: A verb meaning to wake up from sleep.
• Be: A verb meaning to exist or to describe a state or identity.
• Bear: A verb meaning to carry or support, and also to tolerate or endure.

📝 Essential Points

• Awake has past forms awoke and past participle awoken.
• Be uses am/are in the present and was/were in the past.
• Be is used in the famous question “To be or not to be.”
• Bear can mean tolerate, as in “I can't bear being bored.”
• Bear can also mean carry or support, and can mean give birth (naître).

💡 Memory Hook

Awake = wake; Be = exist; Bear = carry/tolerate.

📖 3. Beat and become

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Beat: A verb meaning to strike repeatedly, to defeat, or to escape or leave quickly.
• Become: A verb meaning to change into a new state or role.

📝 Essential Points

• Beat can mean defeat, as in the Miami Heat beating the Pacers by five points, 95-90.
• Beat can mean to strike rhythmically, as in “Beat the drum.”
• Beat can mean to escape or leave quickly, as in “time to beat it.”
• Become can describe a life change, as in “He has just become a father.”
• Become is used with present perfect in the example “has just become.”

💡 Memory Hook

Beat = defeat/strike/escape; become = turn into.

📖 4. Befall and beget

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Befall: A verb meaning to happen to someone, often in a negative or unfortunate way.
• Beget: A verb meaning to produce or cause offspring, and also to bring about something.

📝 Essential Points

• Befall is used for misfortune, as in “A terrible disaster has befallen her.”
• Beget can mean engender, as in producing hunger through poverty.
• Beget is used with a cause→effect chain: “Poverty begets hunger, and hunger begets crime.”
• Befall has past befell and past participle befallen.
• Beget appears with the form “Begat” in the provided list and also with begotten/begot as participles.

💡 Memory Hook

Befall = (bad) happen to you; beget = cause/produce.

📖 5. Begin, behold and bend

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Begin: A verb meaning to start doing something.
• Behold: A verb meaning to see or look at something.
• Bend: A verb meaning to curve or flex, especially by bending a body part.

📝 Essential Points

• Begin has past began and past participle begun.
• Begin can be used for a meeting starting well, as in “began promisingly.”
• Behold is used for an impressive sight, as in “What an amazing sight to behold!”
• Bend can mean to flex knees, as in bending your knees when picking up heavy objects.
• Bend is used with the meaning “plier/se courber” (to bend/curve).

💡 Memory Hook

Begin = start; behold = look/see; bend = curve.

📖 6. Beseech, bet and bid

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Beseech: A verb meaning to ask for something urgently, often in a pleading way.
• Bet: A verb meaning to wager money or to express confidence that something will happen.
• Bid: A verb meaning to offer money in an auction or to make an offer.

📝 Essential Points

• Beseech is used with a plea, as in “Don’t harm him – I beseech you!”
• Beseech has past besought and past participle besought.
• Bet is used with a prediction, as in “I bet that he won't come.”
• Bid can involve an auction offer, as in “John bid €1,000 for the painting.”
• Bid has forms bid/bade and past participle bidden in the provided list.

💡 Memory Hook

Beseech = plead; bet = wager/predict; bid = offer in an auction.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Verb families by meaning

⚠️ Common Pitfalls & Confusions

1. Confusing arise (happen or rise) with arise’s “survenir/se lever” meaning can lead to wrong tense choices.
2. Mixing up be and bear: be is existence/state, while bear is carry/tolerate (not “to be”).
3. Using bid as “to ask” instead of “to offer money” can misfit auction/offer contexts.
4. Treating beat only as “hit” misses defeat and “beat it” (leave/escape).
5. Befall is typically negative in the example, while beget is a cause/production idea (poverty→hunger).

✅ Exam Checklist

1. Use Abide to express remaining in a place or complying with a decision.
2. Use Alight to express stepping down from a vehicle or landing gently.
3. Use Arise to express an opportunity happening or someone rising early.
4. Use Awake to express waking up from sleep.
5. Use Be with correct present forms (am/are) and past forms (was/were).
6. Use Bear to express tolerating/enduring and to express carrying/supporting.
7. Use Beat to express defeat by a score, striking rhythmically, or leaving quickly (“beat it”).
8. Use Become to express changing into a new state or role.
9. Use Befall to express something happening to someone, especially misfortune.
10. Use Beget to express producing offspring or causing outcomes (poverty→hunger→crime).
11. Use Begin to express starting, including the past began and participle begun.
12. Use Behold to express seeing something striking.
13. Use Bend to express curving/flexing a body part (e.g., bending knees).
14. Use Beseech to express urgent pleading and use its besought/besought forms when needed in tense questions.