English is a language of exceptions, where when learning a new grammatical rule, students are faced with a dozen buts in which this rule does not apply. One of these rules is to use Not regular verbs in the past time. For many English learners, this topic is a nightmare. But you can’t do without them, because these are the realities of English! However, there is good news - modern English is gradually getting rid of irregular verbs, replacing them with regular ones. Why and how - we'll look at it in the article.

Why are English verbs irregular?

Not only foreigners, but also native speakers themselves experience difficulty in using irregular verbs. But nevertheless, for English philologists, the non-standardity of this part of speech is not a drawback, but a reason for pride. They believe that irregular verbs are a cultural monument that perpetuates the history of the English language. The explanation for this fact is the Germanic roots of the origin of irregular verbs, which makes British English traditional option language. For comparison, Americans are trying hard to get rid of the irregular shape, converting it into the correct one. Therefore, the list of non-standard verbs increases for those who learn both versions of the language. Thus, the incorrect version is ancient, which is reflected in prose and poetry.

How many forms does a verb have in English?

Talking about verbs in English language, it should be noted that they have 3 forms:

• infinitive, aka ;
• I, or Participle I, - this form is used in the simple past tense ( Past Simple) and the 2nd and 3rd cases of the conditional mood (Conditional of the 2-d and of the 3-d case);
• Past Participle II, or Participle II, for the simple perfect tense of the long past tense ( Past Perfect), passive voice (Passive Voice) and conditional mood of the 3-d case.

The table "Three in English" is presented later in the article.

What are regular and irregular verbs? Education rules

Regular verbs are those in which past form(Past Simple) and the form Participle II (Participle II) are formed by adding the ending -ed to the initial form. The table "Three verb forms in English. Regular verbs" will help you better understand this rule.

There are some features when forming Participle I and Participle II:

• if the verb ends with the letter -e, then adding -ed does not double it;
• The consonant in monosyllabic verbs is duplicated when added. Example: stop - stopped (stop - stopped);
• if the verb ends in -y with a preceding consonant, then y changes to i before adding -ed.

Verbs that do not obey the general rule in the formation of tense forms are called irregular. In English, these include the Past Simple and Participle II verb forms.

Irregular verbs are formed using:

ablauta, in which the root changes. Example: swim - swam - swum (swim - swam - swam);

the use of suffixes different from those accepted in the grammar of the language. Example: do - did - done (do - did - did);

identical or unchangeable form. Example: cut - cut - cut (cut - cut - cut).

Because each irregular verb has its own inflection, they must be learned by heart.

There are a total of 218 irregular verbs in the English language, of which approximately 195 are in active use.

Recent research in the field of language shows that rare verbs are gradually disappearing from the language due to the replacement of the 2nd and 3rd forms with forms of the regular verb, that is, the addition of the ending - ed. This fact is confirmed by the table “Three verb forms in English” - the table presents a number of verbs that have both regular and irregular forms.

table of irregular verbs

The table "Three Forms of Irregular Verbs in English" includes the most frequently used verbs. The table shows 3 forms and translation.

Irregular verbs came to modern English from Old English, which was spoken by the Angles and Saxons - British tribes.

Irregular verbs evolved from so-called strong verbs, each of which had its own type of conjugation.

Researchers from Harvard found that the majority of verbs used are irregular, and they will remain so because they are used more often than others.

There is also a phenomenon in the history of the English language when a regular verb became irregular. For example, sneak, which has 2 forms - sneaked and snuck.

Not only English learners have problems with verbs, but also native speakers, as even they find themselves in awkward situations when it comes to this difficult part of speech.

One of them is Jennifer Garner, who all her life was sure that sneak was the correct verb.

She was corrected by the host of one of the programs in which the actress took part. With a dictionary in hand, he pointed out to Jennifer her mistake.

Therefore, you should not be upset if you make mistakes when using irregular verbs. The main thing is that they do not become systematic.

Regular verbs

The table "Three forms of regular verbs in English with transcription and translation" is compiled on the basis of the most frequently used verbs.

Examples of using 3 forms of verbs with translation

Above we looked at 3 forms of verbs in English. A table with examples of use and translation will help reinforce the topic.

Here, for each grammatical construction, two examples are given - one with regular and one with irregular verbs.

Exercises

To better memorize irregular verbs, you need not only to learn them by heart and repeat them, but also to perform various exercises.

Exercise 1. Here is the table "Three verb forms in English. Irregular verbs." Fill in one of the three missing forms.

Exercise 2. Here is the table "Three verb forms in English. Regular verbs." Insert forms Participle I and II.

Exercise 3. Using the tables, translate the following sentences into English.

1. I was reading a book.
2. We saw them yesterday.
3. The Smiths lived in London until 2000. They then moved to Manchester.
4. Alice was a university student in 2014.
5. They worked in the same company two years ago.
6. He just finished training.
7. When we were children, my mother often took us to this park.
8. I drove a toy car as a child.

Answers to the exercises

Exercise 1.

Exercise 2.

asked, borrowed, closed, decided, explained, helped, started, traveled, used, worked.

Exercise 3.

1. I read a book.
2. We saw them yesterday.
3. The Smiths lived in London till 2000. Then they moved to Manchester.
4. Alice was a student of Univercity in 2014.
5. They worked in the same company two years ago.
6. He has just finished training.
7. When we were children we took for a walk to this park.
8. I drove a toy car in my childhood.

Make it a habit to periodically repeat the basic forms of the English verb. A table with irregular verbs, doing exercises and periodic repetition will help you quickly cope with the difficulties of the English language.

Our topic today is getting to know such an interesting phenomenon as forms of irregular verbs. As you know, the English language is very cunning. This language often lays all sorts of traps for us. One of them is irregular verbs. English is not the only language that has irregular verbs. The French language is also rich in irregular verbs. Irregulars have three or four shapes English verbs?

Romanian language, German, Latin, Greek also contains irregular verbs. And even the Russian language is replete with them. I think you have repeatedly heard about irregular verbs in English, in other words Irregular Verbs. Why are such verbs called irregular? Everything is very simple: in the past tense they are conjugated in their own way, have their own special shape, while all other verbs in the past tense have the ending -ed.

How to distinguish irregular verbs from regular ones?

For comparison, let's conjugate 3 regular regular verbs in the Past Simple:

As you can see, all 3 verbs are conjugated the same way, according to the pattern of stem + ending -ed.

The situation is completely different in the case of irregular verbs. Let's conjugate 3 more verbs in the simple past tense (Past Simple), which are irregular, and here pay attention to the fact that each of these verbs has its own, absolutely different shape at the end or even at the root of a word:

Even the naked eye can see that each of these verbs appeared in its own form, completely different from the others. The catch is that there is no specific rule by which you can find out the form of an irregular verb. Each of them is conjugated differently. The English language, friends, is full of tricks and underwater reefs. Another catch is that each irregular verb has not one form, but three.

Three forms of irregular verbs

So what are these three forms?

• The first is the infinitive or initial (indefinite) form of the verb
• The second is Past Participle I, that is, the form that corresponds to the simple past tense (Past Simple), it is also used in the 2nd and 3rd cases of the conditional mood (Conditional of the 2-d and of the 3-d case)
• The third is Past Participle II, the one that is used in the present perfect tense (Present Perfect) and in the long past tense (Past Perfect). The same form is used in passive voice(Passive Voice), in the Conditional of the 3-d case and some other grammatical rules.

Here are some examples of 3 forms of irregular verbs:

• To arise - arose - arisen - to rise
• To be - was, were - been - to be
• To bear - bore - born - to give birth
• To become - became - become - become, become
• To begin - began - began - to begin
• To catch - caught - caught - to catch, to catch
• To choose - chose - chosen - to choose
• To dig - dug - dug - dig, dig
• To dream - dreamt - dreamt - dream, dream
• To feel - felt - felt - to feel
• To forget - forgot - forgotten - to forget
• To have - had - had - to have

Now let’s look at these 3 forms using example sentences in all of the above verb tenses.

• So, the simple past tense of the verb (Past Simple Tense):

Yesterday she felt herself bad ( to feel). — Yesterday she felt bad. Last Wednesday we met Jim ( to meet). — Last Wednesday we met Jim. Last night I dream you ( to dream). “Last night I dreamed about you.” I was in Paris last year ( to be) — I was in Paris last year.

• Present Perfect Tense:

I have just seen him ( to see). - I just saw him. Tom has already brought my books ( to bring). — Tom has already brought my books. Have you ever been in London ( to be)? - Have you ever been in London? Ann has already forgotten her boy-friend ( to forget).- Anna has already forgotten her boyfriend.

• Past Perfect Tense:

I noticed that I had forgotten my keys ( to forget). — I noticed that I forgot my keys. He understood that he had lost his documents ( to lose). — He realized that he had lost his documents.

• Passive Voice:

The dog is fed by me ( to feed). — The dog was fed by me (I fed the dog). Made in France ( to make). - Made in France.

• Conditional mood of the 2nd and 3rd cases (Conditional). The second and third forms appear here:

If I had money, I would buy a car ( to have). — If I had money, I would buy a car (real condition). If I had money, I would have bought a car ( to have, to buy).- If I had money, I would buy a car (unreal condition, past tense).
How to learn all forms of irregular verbs?

Cheat sheet for memorizing Irregular Verbs

As mentioned above, there are no rules by which the forms of irregular verbs are formed; everyone has their own. But we hope that this poetic form will help you quickly remember these irregular verbs:

To write-wrote-written
To eat-ate-eat
To speak-spoke-spoken
To break-broken-broken

To come-come-come
To become-became-become
To run-run-run
To swim-swam-swum

To know-knew-known
To throw-threw-thrown
To blow-blew-blown
To fly-flown

Tossing-sang-sung
To ring-rang-rung
To hide-hid-hidden
To bite-bit-bitten

To send-sent-sent
To spend-spent-spent
To sleep-slept-slept
To keep-kept-kept

To tell-told-told
To sell-sold-sold
To teach-taught-taught
To catch-caught-caught

To fight-fought-fought
To think-thought-thought
To buy-bought-bought
To bring-brought-brought

To cut-cut-cut
To shut-shut-shut
To cost-cost-cost
To lose-lost-lost

To lead-led-led
To feed-fed-fed
To feel-felt-felt
To hold-held-held

From this funny poetic form we see that some irregular verbs have the same letter combinations, which allows them to rhyme and thereby make it easier for us to remember them.

"Fourth" form of irregular verbs

There is a common belief that there is also a 4th form of irregular verbs. This 4th configuration is formed according to the scheme stem + ending -ing. It defines the Present Participle, that is, the present participle in tenses such as the present continuous tense ( Present Continuous) and past continuous tense (Past Continuous). In other words, it is the present and past tense of the imperfect form. It follows from this that there are not 3, but 4 forms of irregular verbs. But this 4th configuration is, as it were, unofficial.

Let's look at this very 4th form using examples of sentences with the Present Continuous:

The same 4th form in sentences with Past Continuous.

Every schoolchild, pupil, student, and even specialist in the field of English is familiar with the problem of using verb forms.

Let's understand the following concepts:

• why do we need three verb forms in English,
• which verb forms are regular (regular) and which are irregular (irregular).

Verb forms in English

The English verb has three forms. For convenience, in writing the first, second and third forms are designated by Roman numerals I, II, III.

Iform (or infinitive withoutto ) for example: to make (to do) – make – first form (main, basic form)

Using the first form of the verb, the Simple Present Tense is formed. When forming this tense, the first form of the verb is used without change, except with third person singular pronouns - the ending - s or - es (he, she, it - he jumpes, she jumpes, it jumpes) is added to the verb in the first form. Other exceptions are also possible, but they should be examined privately in more detail when studying the formation of the Present Simple Tense.

IIform serves to form the Simple Past Tense. To form this tense, you need to use both regular and irregular verbs. In this case, regular verbs have the ending – ed, and irregular ones are used from the second column of the table of irregular verbs

Jump – jumped (jump – jumped)

IIIform represents a special lexical and grammatical unit - Participle II (Participle II). For regular verbs, form III coincides with form II, and such a verb has the corresponding ending – ed.

Jump (I) – jumped (II) – jumped (III) (jump – jumped – jumped)

II and III forms of irregular verbs can be formed different ways listed below.

Regular verbs

Regular verbs are formed by adding the ending - ed. For example, finish + ed = finish ed.

However, this statement requires clarification.

NB! To determine the correct ending for verbs with a base on a stressed vowel sound and a consonant sound, you need to not only add the ending - ed, but also double it in II and III forms consonant at the end of a word: slip – slipped – slipped.

NB! To determine the correct ending for verbs with a stem ending in a consonant or the letter y, you need to change y to i and add the ending – ed. > try – tried – tried.

→ BUT! There is an exception to this case: if there is a vowel before the vowel y, then y is preserved: play – played – played

To determine the correct ending for verbs with a base on the vowel e, you need to add instead of the ending - ed > only e: skate – skated – skated.

Irregular (irregular) verbs

The question of such verbs is always important for all students of English.

Irregular verbs are verbs that change their form in a way that is not general rules, but using special forms.

It so happened historically that the forms of verbs began to change due to their most frequent use. Therefore, in modern English there are quite a lot of verbs that have II and III forms.

Irregular verbs are involved in the formation primarily of three past tenses - Past Simple, Present Perfect, Past Perfect, as well as the passive voice.

There is no clearly structured algorithm for the formation of these forms; they are mastered mainly by memorization. However, there are some standard methods of formation that are phonetic in nature.

Below are examples of the distribution of verbs into typical groups

1. Availability inI final consonant formd, and inIIand inIIIforms - finished consonantt. In this case, the vowel in the root can be preserved.

1. Changing the vowel at the root of a wordIIform and maintaining (changing) the vowel in the root with the addition of the ending –e (n):

1. Same spelling and pronunciation of verbsIIand inIIIforms