How to Learn English Irregular Verbs Without Memorising a Huge List

Regular English verbs are easy: add -ed for the past (work, worked, worked). Irregular verbs break that rule: go, went, gone. There are a couple of hundred of them, but you do not need them all. A few dozen are used all the time, and many follow patterns you can learn together.

Three forms to know

Each verb has a base form (go), a past simple (went) and a past participle (gone). The past simple is for finished past events: "I went home." The past participle is used with have and in other forms: "I have gone home." Practise the two together in Saw or Seen?.

Learn them in groups

• All three the same: cut, put, hit, set, let — nothing to learn.
• Vowel changes: sing, sang, sung; drink, drank, drunk; swim, swam, swum; begin, began, begun.
• -ought / -aught: buy, bought; bring, brought; think, thought; teach, taught; catch, caught.
• -ew / -own: know, knew, known; grow, grew, grown; fly, flew, flown; throw, threw, thrown.
• The very common ones on their own: be (was or were, been), go (went, gone), have (had, had), do (did, done), see (saw, seen), take (took, taken).

Practise one group at a time

Each of these games gives you one family of verbs. For every verb you meet it twice: once in a finished past sentence (past simple) and once after have (past participle).

• Sang or Sung? — sing, drink, swim, begin, ring, sink.
• Knew or Known? — know, grow, fly, throw, draw, blow.
• Wrote or Written? — write, drive, ride, break, speak, choose.
• Ate or Eaten? — eat, fall, give, take, forget, hide.

Learn the most common first

Start with the verbs you use every day: be, have, do, go, make, say, get, see, take, come, know, think. If you know these twelve well, you can already say a lot. Add a new group each week instead of a long alphabetical list.

Always use them in sentences

A list of three forms is easy to forget. A sentence is easier: "Yesterday I went to the shop and bought some bread." Read sentences aloud, and say the whole sentence, not just the verb. The Past or Perfect? game shows when each form is used.

Avoid the common mistakes

• Do not add -ed to an irregular verb: "I goed" and "she buyed" are mistakes.
• Do not use the past simple after "have": say "I have seen", not "I have saw".
• Do not add -ed after "did": say "Did you go?", not "Did you went?".

Play a few rounds every day for a week. Practise Saw or Seen? → or mix everything in the Grammar Quiz.