Irregular Verbs (beginner)

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