The article analyzes the mistakes that appear in schoolchildren in recent years and associated with the definition of part-speech participle, adverb participle and verbs. The author suggests a possible shift in the system of the modern Russian language, which occurred in the early XXI century and affected the hybrid grammatical forms. It is indicated that schoolchildren often do not distinguish between real and passive participles, participles and adjectives, participles and adverbial participles, adverbial participles and verbs. The question is raised about the causes of such phenomena: linguistic (changes in the Russian language) or methodological (systematic omissions in the teaching of the Russian language at school).