LoginRegular and Irregular Verbs
Dive deep into regular and irregular verbs with detailed explanations. Examples include 'play' – 'played' and 'write' – 'wrote', plus a quiz to test your knowledge.
What Are Regular and Irregular Verbs?
Based on how a verb is conjugated in the past simple tense and past participle, we can divide verbs into two categories: Regular verbs and Irregular verbs.
Regular verbs
Most verbs in the English language are regular verbs, which means that the past simple form and the past participle are created by simply adding '-ed,' or '-d,' or sometimes '-t' to the end of the verb.
past simple form | past participle form | |
|---|---|---|
walk | walked | walked |
call | called | called |
wait | waited | waited |
work | worked | worked |
live | lived | lived |
dream | dreamt | dreamt |
They have finished their homework already.
We visited the museum last weekend.
Irregular verbs
Irregular verbs do not follow a fixed pattern when turning into the simple past or past participle forms.
Their number is limited compared to regular verbs. There are approximately 200 irregular verbs in the English language. The irregular verbs are categorized into four groups:
Group I: Verbs that have different base, past simple, and past participle forms
Group II: Verbs that have the same past simple and past participle forms
Group III: Verbs that have the same base and past participle forms
Group IV: Verbs that have the same base, past simple, and past participle forms
Group I of Irregular Verbs
All three forms of the group I irregular verbs have different forms. Look at the table below to see some examples:
past form | past participle form | |
|---|---|---|
be | was/were | been |
do | did | done |
eat | ate | eaten |
go | went | gone |
see | saw | seen |
I ate lunch at 1:00.
I have already eaten lunch.
Group II of Irregular Verbs
The past and past participle forms of the group II irregular verbs are the same. Look at the table below to see some examples:
past form | past participle form | |
|---|---|---|
buy | bought | bought |
leave | left | left |
teach | taught | taught |
find | found | found |
have | had | had |
She left the party early.
They have left their bags in the car.
Group III of Irregular Verbs
Group III of irregular verbs consists of verbs that have the same base and past participle form. Look at the table to see some examples:
past form | past participle form | |
|---|---|---|
become | became | become |
run | ran | run |
come | came | come |
He ran to catch the bus.
She has run five marathons.
Group IV of Irregular Verbs
All three forms of the group IV irregular verbs are the same. Look at the table to see some examples:
past form | past participle form | |
|---|---|---|
hit | hit | hit |
cut | cut | cut |
cost | cost | cost |
hurt | hurt | hurt |
let | let | let |
The jacket cost $80.
The repairs have cost a lot of money.
Review
Based on how a verb is conjugated in the past simple tense and past participle, we can divide verbs into two categories.
Regular verbs follow a fixed pattern. They take "-ed," "-d" or "-t" which can be pronounced as /t/ /d/ or /ɪd/.
-d | -ed | -t (common in BrE) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Present | dance | burn | learn |
Past tense | danced | burned | learnt |
Past participle | danced | burned | learnt |
Irregular verbs do not follow fixed patterns. There are four groups of irregular verbs.
description | present | past | past participle |
|---|---|---|---|
Verbs with different forms for base, past simple, and past participle | be | was/were | been |
Verbs with the same form for past simple and past participle | find | found | found |
Verbs with the same form for base and past participle | come | came | come |
Verbs with the same form for base, past simple, and past participle | hurt | hurt | hurt |
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