Sang vs. Sung

[SJ.]

When do you use sang versus sung? I can't believe I am stumped by my 2nd grader's homework. :confused:

 

For those that do not know, my boys attend a HS enrichment program at a local classical charter school. The program has a language arts focus.

[edelweiss]

Sang is past tense. Sung is the past participle. When you use a past participle, it has to have a helping verb with it.

 

So...

 

Joe sang a song.

 

Molly had sung the same song.

[Elinor Everywhere]

I always thought "sung" was used with a helping verb:

I sang the national anthem at the game.

The national anthem was sung at the game.

 

Does that help?

[kaylk in tx]

something we used when i taught ps to help the kids remember...

 

I sing today.

I sang yesterday.

I have sung many times in the past.

 

every week we'd do a few of those tricky verb forms using the same pattern sentences.

[Arcadia]

My 3rd grader had to remember the irregular verbs last year for school. He has something like this list http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/605/01/

[SJ.]

I can't believe I didn't know this, my only solace is I knew using sung as past tense wasn't right. Dh didn't know either. Is this something second graders should know? The assignment was "Write a declarative sentence with the word sung." I do not think they talked about when to use sing/sang/sung in the classroom, I believe they were chosen because recently they were spelling words. We use the Spalding Method (WRTR) for spelling.