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Irregular Verbs

Irregular verbs are not regular.

If you listened to your vocabulary teacher when you were a kid, you know that the prefix ir means not, which would help you remember that these are not regular.

But, before you learn about these not regular verbs, you need to learn about simple verb tenses and regular verbs.

So, let's get started!


Quick Refresher: A verb is a word that names an action or a state of being.


Verb Tenses

I will teach you all about irregular verbs, but first, you need to know about verb tenses.

Tense indicates time. Every time that we use a verb, we are using a particular verb tense to indicate when that verb occurred.

There are three simple verb tenses that are the most basic verb tenses.

1. Past Tense: These verbs take place in the past.

ran, walked, swam, kicked

2. Present Tense: These verbs take place in the present.

run, walk, swim, kick

3. Future Tense: These verbs take place in the future.

will run, will walk, will swim, will kick

Past tense and present tense are the two tenses that are important for this discussion, so those are the two that we are going to focus on.

Look at these examples of past and present tense verbs.

Present TensePast Tense
kickkicked
talktalked
movemoved
pushpushed
swimswam
costcost
sitsat
wearwore


Regular Verbs

If you are a very observant person, you would have noticed that the verbs in the first part of the chart above followed a pattern and the verbs in the second part of the chart did not follow a pattern.

The verbs that followed a pattern are examples of regular verbs.

Regular verbs add either a -d or an -ed to the present tense form to create the past tense form.

This chart shows how regular verbs are formed:

Present Tense+ -d or -edarrowPast Tense
kick+ -edarrowkicked
talk+ -edarrowtalked
move+ -d arrowmoved
push+ -edarrowpushed


Irregular Verbs

Now we can finally talk about irregular verbs!

These are the ones that don't end in -d or an -ed in their past tense.

Present Tense+ ? arrowPast Tense
swim+ ?arrowswam
do+ ?arrowdid
have+ ? arrowhad
freeze+ ?arrowfroze
break+ ?arrowbroke
steal+ ?arrowstole
cost+ ?arrowcost

As you can see, these verbs don't follow a pattern.

It's because of this that they are not regular.

So, if they don't follow a pattern, how do you know how to form the past tense form of an irregular verb?

Luckily, you'll find this information in a dictionary. When in doubt, look it up.


Don't be scared. Learn some sentence diagramming!

Go Back to the Verb Tenses Page

Go from Irregular Verbs Back to English Grammar Home Page


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Elizabeth O'Brien SNOW


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