Irregular verbs

Learn about irregular verbs like be, eat, get, know and wear and do the exercises to practise using them.

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=

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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

In the dictionary they both have the same meaning, like you can say ( sit down or set down ) but which one of them is the correct to say ?

Hello MoussA,

Did you follow the links that Peter posted? Those definitions are definitely not the same. Just because you can use 'down' after both words doesn't make them mean the same thing. You sit down on a chair but you set down your phone on a table.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello, Please tell me the difference between the following: A house off/by/near the main road.

Hello Petals,

The meanings here are very close and in most cases I would say that they are interchangeable. Certainly 'by' and 'near' are really the same, I would say.

'Off the main road' suggests that you need to move away from the main road to reach the house. It may be down a minor road or a path, for example.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team