By the end of this page, you should ...
- Know the past simple and past participle forms of the most common irregular verbs in English
What are irregular past verbs?
The typical ending for verbs in the past simple and past participle forms is ED, with a few regular exceptions. Irregular verbs are those that don’t follow this rule, sometimes changing completely and sometimes not changing at all.
Why do I need to learn irregular past verbs?
Irregular past verbs tend to be learnt in all forms at the same time. The first column is the bare infinitive form, the second column is the past simple tense and the third column is the past participle, which is required for perfect tenses. If you’d like to express a sentence in the past simple, you’ll need to know the correct verb form. If you’d like to express something in the present perfect, past perfect, future perfect or any passive form, you’ll need to know the past participle of your irregular verbs.
We can also use these verbs forms in participle clauses so they are useful to know.
How can I learn irregular past verbs?
Every student learns in a different way but here are a few recommendations;
- Learn the full form of the verb and repeat (go – went – gone)
- Focus only on the second column to use the verbs correctly in the past simple tense. Describe yesterday, last weekend, your last birthday.
- Focus only on the third column to use the verbs correctly in the perfect tenses. Create and respond to a question using the structure “have you ever …?” E.g. Have you ever eaten? Yes, I have eaten many times.
- Learn the irregular verbs by their patterns. E.g. verbs with I – A – U (begin-began-begun / drink – drank – drunk)
What are the most common irregular past verbs?
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