English Irregular Verbs and Their Past Tense Forms

Most English verbs form their past tense by adding -ed: play, played, played. These are regular verbs. But around two hundred common verbs ignore that rule. They are called irregular verbs, and because they include the most frequent verbs in the language (be, have, do, go, say, get, make, see), you cannot avoid them. Many of them follow small patterns, though, so a little practice goes a long way.

The three forms

The past simple stands alone: She wrote a letter. The past participle needs a helper: She has written a letter. / The letter was written by hand.

Mixing these up causes most irregular-verb mistakes.

Pattern 1: all three forms are the same

These are the easiest. Base, past and participle are identical:

cut, put, hit, let, set, shut, cost, hurt, quit, spread, bet, burst

• Today I cut the paper. Yesterday I cut it. I have cut it.

Pattern 2: past and participle are the same

This is the largest group. Learn one new form and you have two:

Notice the sub-pattern in the first five: -ought and -aught endings. Brought goes with bring, bought with buy.

Pattern 3: the vowel changes, I → A → U

A family of verbs changes the vowel in a regular sequence:

The rule of thumb: A for the past (I swam), U after have (I have swum). I swum across the lake is a common mistake in speech, but standard English uses swam there.

Pattern 4: participle ends in -n or -en

Many verbs add -n or -en in the participle:

Watch the spelling: written and ridden double the consonant, while chosen and spoken do not.

Pattern 5: completely irregular

A few verbs follow no pattern at all and simply have to be memorised:

• be: was/were, been
• go: went, gone
• do: did, done
• have: had, had

Go is a curiosity: went originally belonged to a different verb, wend, which is why it looks nothing like go.

The mistakes to watch for

Verbs with two accepted forms

Some verbs have both a regular and an irregular form, and usage varies by region:

• learn: learned / learnt
• dream: dreamed / dreamt
• burn: burned / burnt
• spell: spelled / spelt

American English generally prefers the -ed forms; British English uses both. Dive can be dived or dove in American English, and get has the participle gotten in American English but got in British English.

Irregular verbs in word games

Irregular forms are useful plays in Scrabble because many are short and use common letters: ATE, SAT, WON, RAN, SANG and SUNG. Participles can grow into new words, too: GONE becomes GONER and AGONE, and DONE becomes DONEE, all valid in the main Scrabble lists. When you are unsure about a form, the word checker shows which dictionaries accept it.

Study the verbs

The flashcards cover eighteen of the most common irregular verbs. Read the base form, say both the past and participle out loud, then flip to check.

Practice quiz