Confusing Words: Verb
Meaning: perform or undergo the first part of (an action or activity).
Clarification: Began and begun are two forms of an irregular verb ‘begin’.
Began vs Begun – What is the Difference, Definition & Meaning?
Sometimes, English language can be difficult to understand. The words can be problematic to writers and even speakers. It happens, sometimes, that the use of past tense can make confusion among writers. There are many irregular verbs in English vocabulary that don’t end up with regular –d, -ed, or –ied.
Though began and begun are the forms of an irregular verb ‘begin‘, but you cannot use these words interchangeably. There are rules to be followed in order to make your text an error-free piece of writing.
Let us discuss each term separately so that you can easily get the difference between began and begun. First of all, you need to get the definition of begin.
Definition of Begin: It is used as a verb within sentences. Begin means to start or to commence the earliest part of an action. For example,
• I will begin my story with a famous quote of Shakespeare on life.
Began
It is the simple past tense of the verb begin. You do not need any word like helping or auxiliary verbs to stable began. It can stand alone in the sentence to make sense. For example,
1. I began to work on our project to finish it before the due date.
2. It based farmland property assessments on 4-year-old crop prices, meaning taxes climbed even as farm revenues began to decline. (WBAA)
Begun
It is the past participle form of the verb begin. As being a past participle form, begun cannot stand alone but should be used with helping or auxiliary verbs. For example,
1. I have begun to work on my project.
2. She had begun to help me on my project.
3. Skanska USA and DPR Construction, first tapped to build the project, left after work had begun, which Reuters points out is rare for a project of this scale. (Quartz)
Check Out: The Difference Between Capital and Capitol.
Got the Difference?
It is very important to understand the difference between began and begun that are often get confused. I hope that after reading the above explanation you have found the differences between begin and began.
The use of simple past and past participle is quite easy to memorize. You do not need any helping or auxiliary verb to be used with began (simple past) whereas, begun (past participle) needs an auxiliary or helping verb to be used with it.
Began = Simple Past (does not need helping verbs)
Begun = Past Participle (needs helping verbs)
What Did You Learn?
Began and begun are two forms of an irregular verb ‘begin’. Began is the simple past form of begin and is not used with any auxiliary or helping verb. On the other hand, begun is the past participle form of begin and is always used with an auxiliary or a helping verb.