Irregular verbs do not add -ed in the past simple or : go, went, gone; buy, bought, bought. A few dozen of them are used constantly. Learn them in pattern groups (all forms the same, two forms the same, three different forms) rather than in alphabetical order.
What irregular verbs are
Regular verbs make the past simple and the with -ed: walk, walked, walked. Irregular verbs change in other ways, or not at all. Every verb has three forms to learn: the base form (go), the past simple (went) and the past participle (gone).
Use the past simple on its own: I went home. Use the past participle with have or has (the present perfect), with had, and in the : I have gone. The report was written by a student.
Pattern 1: all three forms the same
These verbs do not change. The easiest group to learn.
- cut, cut, cut
- put, put, put
- set, set, set
- let, let, let
- hit, hit, hit
- hurt, hurt, hurt
- shut, shut, shut
- read, read, read (spelled the same, but the past forms are pronounced /red/)
Pattern 2: the past simple and past participle are the same
In this group the base form is different, but you only have one new form to learn. The group is large. Look for the shared endings.
- -ought or -aught: buy, bought, bought; bring, brought, brought; think, thought, thought; teach, taught, taught; catch, caught, caught.
- -ent: send, sent, sent; spend, spent, spent; lend, lent, lent.
- -ept, -elt or -eft: keep, kept, kept; sleep, slept, slept; feel, felt, felt; leave, left, left.
- -old or -eld: sell, sold, sold; tell, told, told; hold, held, held.
- other: build, built, built; have, had, had; make, made, made; pay, paid, paid; say, said, said; hear, heard, heard; find, found, found; meet, met, met; stand, stood, stood; sit, sat, sat; lose, lost, lost; win, won, won.
Pattern 3: three different forms
These are the verbs learners mix up most. The past simple and the are different, so be careful in the present perfect: say I have written, not I have wrote.
- i, a, u: begin, began, begun; drink, drank, drunk; sing, sang, sung; swim, swam, swum.
- -ew, -wn: know, knew, known; grow, grew, grown; draw, drew, drawn; throw, threw, thrown; fly, flew, flown.
- o, o + en: speak, spoke, spoken; break, broke, broken; choose, chose, chosen.
- i, o + en: write, wrote, written; drive, drove, driven; ride, rode, ridden.
- past participle ends in -en: eat, ate, eaten; fall, fell, fallen; give, gave, given; take, took, taken; see, saw, seen.
- very common: be, was or were, been; do, did, done; go, went, gone.
Pattern 4: base form and past participle the same
A few verbs change in the past simple only: come, came, come; run, ran, run; and become, became, become, which follows come. Say I have come and she has run, not I have came.
How to practise
Do not learn the whole list at once. Choose one pattern a day and say each verb three times aloud (go, went, gone). Then write six sentences: two in the past simple, two in the present perfect and two in the .
In Speaking Part 2, you tell stories in the past, so the past simple forms matter most. In Writing Task 1, the present perfect and the passive appear often, so check the .
A habit that works
A useful habit is to meet each verb in a full sentence, not in a list. If you write I went to the market, and I have gone there every week since, you practise two forms at once. Reading helps too: when you meet a past form in an article, say the other two forms aloud before you continue. Over a few weeks the common verbs become automatic, and your Speaking Part 2 stories sound smoother because you no longer stop to think.
Common mistakes
Learners often make a regular form from an irregular verb, or use the wrong one of the three forms:
- I buyed a car. Say: I bought a car.
- She has went home. Say: She has gone home.
- I seen him yesterday. Say: I saw him yesterday.
- We have wrote the report. Say: We have written the report.
- He has ate lunch. Say: He has eaten lunch.
Who finds this hard?
- Chinese speakers: Chinese verbs do not change form, so every past form is new. Learn the three-form groups slowly and practise the with has or have.
- Japanese speakers: Japanese verbs follow regular endings, so irregular English verbs feel random. Group them by pattern and practise them in short sentences.
- Spanish speakers: Spanish has its own irregular verbs, so the idea is familiar. The trouble is that English has no regular endings to guess from, so learn the forms by pattern.
IELTS tip
Irregular verbs cause quick, easy-to-see mistakes in Speaking Part 2 and in Writing Task 1 trends. Keep a short personal list of the verbs you get wrong and check every past verb before you finish writing.
Frequently asked questions
What are irregular verbs?
Irregular verbs have past forms that do not end in -ed, such as go, went, gone or buy, bought, bought.
How many irregular verbs do I need to know?
Start with the twenty or thirty that appear most often, such as be, have, do, go, make, take, see and say. You will meet the rest gradually.
What is the past participle?
It is the third verb form, used after have, has and had and in the . For regular verbs it ends in -ed; for irregular verbs it needs to be learned, as in written or gone.
What is the best way to learn them?
Group them by pattern, say all three forms aloud, and use each in a short sentence of your own.
Sources
- Swan, M. (2016). Practical English Usage, 4th edition. Oxford University Press.
- Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press.