Irregular Verbs
Every English verb has three important forms: the base form (the infinitive), the past simple, and the past participle (used in perfect tenses and the passive).
Regular verbs normally use the -ed ending for both the past simple and past participle (e. g. work → worked → worked) but irregular verbs don't follow this pattern.
| Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| go | went | gone |
Still, we can observe that many irregular verbs follow patterns. Learning these groups can make irregular verbs much easier to remember.
Common patterns
| Pattern | Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|---|
| All three forms are the same V1=V2=V3 |
cut put hit cost |
cut put hit cost |
cut put hit cost |
| Past simple = past participle V2=V3 |
buy make think teach |
bought made thought taught |
bought made thought taught |
| Base form = past participle V1=V3 |
come run become overcome |
came ran became overcame |
come run become overcome |
| Vowel change: i → a → u | begin drink sing swim |
began drank sang swam |
begun drunk sung swum |
| Past participle ends in -en / -n | break speak choose write |
broke spoke chose wrote |
broken spoken chosen written |
| -ought / -aught pattern | think buy bring catch |
thought bought brought caught |
thought bought brought caught |
| Other common vowel changes | drive ride take give |
drove rode took gave |
driven ridden taken given |
| Completely different forms | go be see eat |
went was / were saw ate |
gone been seen eaten |
Remember: these are useful patterns, not fixed rules. Some verbs do not fit neatly into a group, so the three forms still need to be learned.
Some very common irregular verbs are also auxiliary verbs:
| Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| be | was / were | been |
| have | had | had |
| do | did | done |
Finally, some verbs have two accepted forms, with preferences sometimes differing between British and American English:
- learn – learnt / learned – learnt / learned
- dream – dreamt / dreamed – dreamt / dreamed
- burn – burnt / burned – burnt / burned
- get – got – got / gotten
