Rose or Risen: Which Is Correct? (Helpful Examples)

Certain verbs are known as irregular verbs. That’s because they don’t follow the standard rules you expect when turning them into their past tense forms. This article will look at the past tense of “rise” and how we can use it in multiple forms.

Rose or Risen: Which Is Correct?

“Rose” is the simple past tense form of “rise.” We use it when talking about “rising” in the past and nothing more than that. “Risen” is the past participle of “rise,” and we use it with an auxiliary verb to create the perfect tense, which extends the usual past tense.

You might see the two forms in different ways, and these examples will demonstrate how they both work:

I rose out of bed early this morning.
I have risen again to find out what happened to me in my last life.

“Rose” is the simple past tense. It’s called this because there aren’t any hidden rules or agendas behind using it. It is “simple” because we simply place it after a pronoun to talk about “rising” in the past tense.

“Risen” is a more complicated variation. It’s the past participle, which doesn’t do much on its own. However, when accompanied by an auxiliary verb (in this example, “have”), we managed to turn it into the present perfect tense.

We’ll talk more about what the present perfect tense is later. For now, just remember the following:

Verb	Rise
Past	Rose
Past Participle	Risen

When Is “Rose” Correct?

“Rose” is the simpler of the two to use, so we’ll start by explaining it.

You can use “rose” when talking about someone “rising” in the past tense. It’s a good way to show that the event has already happened, and nothing can be done in the present to affect the outcome.

There are no more rules to the simple past tense. We simply need a pronoun and the past tense verb to start our sentence:

I rose
He rose
They rose
We rose

We could go on, but we’ll leave it there. There are plenty of choices you can use when writing in the simple past tense, but you must make sure to keep it “simple” and avoid any auxiliary verbs.

Example Sentences Using “Rose”

To help you understand when the past tense might be used in this way, you can look at the following examples.

I rose early yesterday to make sure that I would have enough time to do my exercises.
The sun rose and left behind a brilliant explosion of color in the air!
My house rose about three feet in the air due to the tornado.
He rose again, but it didn’t seem to do any good for his cause.
We rose in the rankings quite quickly, which was amazing considering we weren’t any good at working in a team.
They rose as a team, which was a great thing to see when you knew how much work they put in.

“Rose” is the simple past tense and works to talk about things “rising.” We use it to talk about people “rising” or things “rising” (like teams on league tables).

When Is “Risen” Correct?

“Risen” is a little more complicated. It introduces us to the perfect tenses, and there are three that we need to know about.

“Risen” is the past participle, which doesn’t do much for a grammatically correct sentence on its own. We have to include auxiliary verbs like “have” when using the past participle to create the perfect tense. It could be the past, present, or future perfect tense.

The tense used depends on the auxiliary verb that accompanies “risen.” No matter what tense we are writing in, “risen” always stays the same. “Have” will be the one that changes based on the tense. Here’s what we mean:

Past perfect: Had risen
Present perfect: Have risen
Future perfect: Will have risen

The past perfect isn’t very common, but we use “had” when it applies. It refers to situations that have happened in the past, but there might be some way that they can still impact the future.

The present perfect is the most common, using “have” as the auxiliary verb. It means that someone or something “rose” in the past, but it’s continuing to do so or just finishing “rising” in the present.

The future perfect is somewhere between the two, and “will have” is the auxiliary of choice here. This is mostly used to set up hypothetical situations that are related to our present actions and what we decide to do about them.

Example sentences using “Risen”

We’ll split these examples into sections to make sure you understand how each perfect tense works.

Past Perfect

I had risen once before, but no one cared about the things I had to say.
We had risen to catch the early morning sunrise, but we were still too late to see anything interesting.

“Had risen” is the past perfect tense. It works by talking about “rising” in the past and completing the task already, but reminiscing about it or thinking about something you could have done in the present.

Present Perfect

I have risen to tell you the good news of my rebirth!
They have risen early to make sure they catch the sunrise before it goes.

“Have risen” is the present perfect tense. It works by talking about “rising” at some point in the past (even just a few seconds ago) and continuing to “rise” in the present.

Future Perfect

I will have risen again by the time the night draws in.
We will have risen earlier tomorrow if we set our alarms.

“Will have risen” is the future perfect tense. We use it to talk about future events and “rising” that might occur depending on what our behavior dictates in the present.

“Have Rose” Vs. “Have Risen”

“Have risen” is correct because “risen” is the past participle, which requires an auxiliary verb like “have” to make sense. “Have rose” is incorrect because “rose” doesn’t need an auxiliary verb as it is the simple past tense.

Final Thoughts

“Rose” is the easiest of the two forms to use, as it introduces us to the simple past tense. “Risen” requires a bit more thought since there are three perfect tenses that it introduces. Once you understand the different auxiliary verb forms, it’ll make a lot more sense!