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
The first thing we need to talk about is
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 Tense |
Past Tense |
| kick |
kicked |
| talk |
talked |
| move |
moved |
| push |
pushed |
| swim |
swam |
| cost |
cost |
| sit |
sat |
| wear |
wore |
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 -ed |
 |
Past Tense |
| kick |
+ -ed |
 |
kicked |
| talk |
+ -ed |
 |
talked |
| move |
+ -d |
 |
moved |
| push |
+ -ed |
 |
pushed |
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 |
+ ? |
 |
Past Tense |
| swim |
+ ? |
 |
swam |
| do |
+ ? |
 |
did |
| have |
+ ? |
 |
had |
| freeze |
+ ? |
 |
froze |
| break |
+ ? |
 |
broke |
| steal |
+ ? |
 |
stole |
| cost |
+ ? |
 |
cost |
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.
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