Irregular verbs

Level: beginner

Most verbs have a past tense and past participle with –ed:

worked
played
listened

But many of the most frequent verbs are irregular:

Base form	Past tense	Past participle
be	was/were	been
begin	began	begun
break	broke	broken
bring	brought	brought
buy	bought	bought
build	built	built
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
cost	cost	cost
cut	cut	cut
do	did	done
draw	drew	drawn
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
feel	felt	felt
find	found	found
get	got	got
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
have	had	had
hear	heard	heard
hold	held	held
keep	kept	kept
know	knew	known
leave	left	left
lead	led	led
let	let	let
lie	lay	lain
lose	lost	lost
make	made	made
mean	meant	meant
meet	met	met
pay	paid	paid
put	put	put
run	ran	run
say	said	said
see	saw	seen
sell	sold	sold
send	sent	sent
set	set	set
sit	sat	sat
speak	spoke	spoken
spend	spent	spent
stand	stood	stood
take	took	taken
teach	taught	taught
tell	told	told
think	thought	thought
understand	understood	understood
wear	wore	worn
win	won	won
write	wrote	written

Irregular verbs: Grouping_MTYxNjU=

Average

Hello
I do not know if this is the right session, but I would ask you about the verbs:
"to lend" and "to borrow"
Although "to lend" refers to giving something to someone, and "to borrow" to taking and using something from others, I struggle to put this concept into practice.
For instance, now it is easy for me to remember:
"Can you lend me your umbrella?" or "Can I borrow your umbrella?"
If you ask me the difference in a few hours, I will not be sure which one is the correct form.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for help.

Hi User_1,

I would suggest that as part of your vocabulary learning, you try to use the words in meaningful conversations, writing or speaking. For example, try to use the words when you are writing your diary, talking to someone, or taking an English class. When you use the new words, it forces you to think about the words more, associate them with other words, and put them into a meaningful context. All of these things can be cues for your memory.

Also, difficulty may appear because you are learning "lend" and "borrow" at the same time, and their meanings are related. That means that their meanings can easily become confused in our memory. If this happens to you, I would suggest learning them one by one. Choose one to focus on first, and practise it. For example, if you focus on "lend", you can make some questions to ask to people (e.g. Can you lend me your phone? Can you lend me some money?) and look for opportunities to really ask those questions. You could also write some example sentences (e.g. Banks lend money) focusing on that word, look out for it when you are reading or listening, or search for "lend" in a dictionary and read the example sentences there. When the word feels comfortable and fixed in your vocabulary, move on to "borrow".

I can give you an example from my own experience. I'm trying to learn Korean, and I always mixed up the words "autumn" and "winter" because they sound similar to me. But then I listened to a podcast about winter in Korea, and they repeated the word "winter" a lot. When I made some notes after listening, I wrote "winter" many times. That helped fix the word "winter" in my mind, and then it was easier to remember "autumn" after then.

I hope that helps.

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

Jonathan, your suggestion to learn the new words one by one
and practise one at a time into a meaningful context is really helpful.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Corean learning as well.
Knowing your struggles while learning a foreign language is reassuring.

Hi User_1,

I'm glad it was helpful. I forgot to mention, to learn a word it also helps if you consider related words in the same word family. For example, related to "lend" are:

lending
lender (= a business or person that lends money)
lent (= past form of lend)

You may be able to make meaningful sentences with these (e.g. In my town, there are many money lenders. / Money lending between friends can cause problems), which can then help you to memorise the meaning of the base word.

About struggles, I'm sure that everyone who is learning a language can relate. Learning a language may seem like climbing a mountain, but there are many of us climbing as well so you are in good company :)

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your further hints, and for your kind encouragement about learning a foreign language.
Since English is an international and worldwide language, making mistakes in English is heavier than learning a less common language (e.g. the Italian).

This is irrelevant question but I need to ask. Would you please tell me what are the references in English language Grammar? Like a list of early books that can be considered as references for grammar.
Thanks in advance.

Hello Roman,

I'm afraid we don't recommend books, but I can make a suggestion. I'd suggest you do an internet search for 'best books to learn English grammar'. Compare the recommendations on two or three pages and then make a list of the top two or three books recommended. Then read the descriptions and, if possible, see what the pages inside look like so that you can choose the one that you think will be most useful for you.

Good luck!

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Do we have some rules for changing the base form to past?

Hello themarvelous93,

The rules are explained at the top of this page. For most verbs (which we call 'regular' verbs), we add '-ed' or '-d' to the end of the base form. 'work' becomes 'worked', 'play' becomes 'played', 'escape' becomes 'escaped'.

The past forms for irregular verbs are not regular -- you just have to learn them. Sometimes people study these verbs in groups based on the past simple form -- for example, 'buy', 'bring' and 'think' all have '-ought' in their past simple form: 'bought', 'brought' and 'thought'.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Sir what is past participle of twist

Hi Adreyan,

It's twisted. It's a regular verb :)

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Dear professor, could you help me to analyze the word "gotten" what form do we use in ?

Hi juliafer,

Gotten is a past participle of the verb get. You could say, for example:

The wind’s gotten stronger. (present perfect)
He hasn’t gotten a job yet. (present perfect)
I was a bit ill but I’ve gotten much better. (present perfect)
I was tired because I hadn't gotten any sleep. (past perfect)

There is another past participle of get – got. Using got is more common in British English and using gotten is more common in American English.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Past participle

Hi, Happy New Year. I would like to ask if the following are correct 1. Television and radio has a big part of the market. Is this sentence correct? Thank you in advance

Hi Nagie23,

Happy New Year to you too :)

Yes, it's correct!

There are two things here (Television and radio). So, we might consider the subject to be 'They', which needs the third person plural verb form: Television and radio have ...

But, if the speaker says Television and radio has ... , it shows that the speaker thinks of these things (Television and radio) as two parts of a single thing (e.g. broadcast media), which is an 'it' instead of a 'they'. So, the concept is slightly different.

Another example of this is: Fish and chips is delicious. We could say 'is' instead of 'are' to show that we are talking about the dish as an undivided whole.

Does that make sense?

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Hi, I'm from France, and i would just like to know, does anyone knows free websites to improve English? Thanks

You're on one, they don't get much better than this.

This is really helpful. Thanks.

hi my name is su maddiq

Thanks

Hi, In previous lesson exercises, I'm not sure if the listed answers are correct. 1. In November, we’ll have been living in this house for ten years. Now verb phrase listed as the answer is "will have been", I think it should be "will have been living" if I'm wrong then please explain why 'living' is not considered part of the main verb. 2. Lorena must’ve been really happy to see her sister again after all this time. In answer 'been' is listed as the Modal verb, I guess this is a mistake, the modal verb is 'must'. isn't it? Regards

Hi SajadKhan,

We'd like to check your examples but we're not sure which pages they come from. Could you please post the comment on the relevant page and let us know which exercise the examples come from, or else post a link to the page? Then we'll be able to check and correct any errors we find.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hi Peter, These are from https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verb-phrases-intermediate Regards

Hi SajadKhan,

Thank you for the link. You are correct about both questions and I will edit the task accordingly. It may take a little time for the changes to appear in the task but they will be corrected.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Sir, You shock or run by seeing me You shock or run seeing me. Which one is appropriate, the one with 'By' or without it ?

Hi SonuKumar,

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by 'you shock or run', so I'm afraid I can't say.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Sir, I'll get your phone number recharged to talk (to you) in future. Or I'll get your phone number recharged for For talking (to you) in future. I think the first one is right isn't it ?

Hi SonuKumar,

Yes, the first is better.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Very good excercise, only one fault. To catch

Sir, My Car has not been around Since last night. I wonder If I can rewrite this sentence like this- My car has been disappeared or vanished since last night. I want to say that this company was closed 18 years ago or It's been 18 years since this company was closed. Could I also say this thing like this- This company has been closed since the year 2000 ? Note, I'm using the past participle 'closed' as an adjective here, One might misunderstand it as ed form of the transitive verb close.

Hi SonuKumar,

'disappear' and 'vanish' are intransitive verbs, so they are not used in passive constructions like the ones in your sentences. You could say 'My car disappeared (or vanished) last night' and that would be fine.

As for your second question, yes, that is correct and well-formed.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Sir, Sit, Stand, Stay and Live. Are these stative verbs ?

Hi SonuKumar,

No, they are not.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello,Are both sentences correct? It is easy to read. It is easy for reading.

Hello harish kumar sharma,

The first sentence is fine but the second is not correct.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Sir, Why is second sentence not correct?

Hello harish kumar sharma,

The meaning of the sentence is as follows:

Reading it is easy.

When we have a sentence like this we use an infinitive after the adjective:

Reading it is easy > It is easy to read

Explaining it is hard > It is hard to explain

Eating it is good > It is good to eat

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Thank you sir

can you talk about "tobe" verb? i don't know when use "be". ex: you'll BE late for school. why not use "are"

Hello hathe,

After 'will' to talk about the future we use the infinitive form. For example:

You will be late for school.

She'll finish work at four o'clock.

If we want to talk about something which is true now then we use a present form. For example:

You are late for school.

She finishes work at four o'clock.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

dear somtimes i cant master infinitive form of tobe. could you show me full form of it ? or give me material of it, please. for ex: in magazines today there are many article telling us that we need to drink a lot of water to "be" healthy and beautiful . and more. it isnt belong future form. thanks

Hello tryon,

The form 'to be' is the infinitive form of the verb. It is used in the same way as other infinitives. Your example from the magazines is an example of what is called an infinitive of purpose. This is an infinitive form used to show the reason for an action. For example, in this sentence the 'to be healthy' part means 'in order to be healthy' or 'so that we can be healthy'.

We need to drink a lot of water to be healthy.

You can read more about the infinitive form, including the infinitive of purpose, on this page.

Peter
The LearnEnglish Team

thank you so much. i will try to reseach it

oh... my "belong" . ive mistaken that was an adj.

Thank you Sir for always helping us with our questions regarding English grammar.

Is 'We will talk later' and 'We talk later' have the same meaning or is it grammatically incorrect to say 'We talk later' since the word later denotes future? Because I always hear native English speakers especially Americans saying 'talk to you later' instead of' I'll talk to you later.' Do they have the same meaning also? Thanks.

Hello html,

'We talk later' by itself is not correct. 'We will talk later' could be correct in context -- see our talking about the future page for a more detailed explanation of the different forms typically used to speak about the future.

'talk to you later' (as a way of saying goodbye) is an abbreviated form of 'I'll talk to you later' (the word 'I'll' has been removed). In this case, 'will' is a kind of promise, I'd say.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

What's the difference between sit and set ?

Hello MoussA El-GazzaR,

These are two entirely different words without any particular similarity. For the base definitions and uses of these words you can check in a dictionary:

set

sit

If you have particular examples in mind then please post the sentences and we'll be happy to comment on those.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Irregular verbs

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