Most English verbs form the past simple and past participle by adding -ed (walk → walked). Irregular verbs do not follow this pattern and must be memorised individually. They are among the most frequently used verbs in the language.
3 subtopics — pick one to start practising
Irregular Past Simple
The past simple is used in active sentences to describe completed past actions. Irregular past forms include: go → went, see → saw, take → took, give → gave, come → came, write → wrote, speak → spoke, think → thought, bring → brought, buy → bought, teach → taught, catch → caught, break → broke, choose → chose, know → knew.
Irregular Past Participles
Past participles are used in perfect tenses (have/had + pp) and the passive (be + pp). Many irregular verbs have a different past participle from their past simple. Examples: go → gone, see → seen, take → taken, write → written, speak → spoken, do → done, eat → eaten, fall → fallen, choose → chosen, break → broken, drive → driven, give → given, ring → rung.
Tricky Three-Form Verbs
Some irregular verbs have three completely different forms (base/past simple/past participle): sing/sang/sung, ring/rang/rung, drink/drank/drunk, swim/swam/swum, begin/began/begun, blow/blew/blown, draw/drew/drawn, fly/flew/flown, grow/grew/grown, know/knew/known, throw/threw/thrown, wear/wore/worn.