Regular and Irregular Verbs

Regular verbs

A regular verb forms its past simple and past participle by adding -ed (or -d if the verb already ends in e) to the base form. The past simple and past participle are always identical for regular verbs.

Rule	Base form	Past simple	Past participle
Add -ed	walk, talk, start	walked, talked, started	walked, talked, started
Ends in -e: add -d	love, live, hope	loved, lived, hoped	loved, lived, hoped
Ends in consonant + y: change to -ied	study, carry, try	studied, carried, tried	studied, carried, tried
Short verb ending in CVC: double consonant	stop, plan, drop	stopped, planned, dropped	stopped, planned, dropped

Irregular verbs

An irregular verb does not follow the -ed pattern. Each irregular verb has its own past simple and past participle forms that must be learned. Some have the same form in all three columns; some change completely.

The most common irregular verbs

Base form	Past simple	Past participle
be	was / were	been
have	had	had
do	did	done
go	went	gone
get	got	got / gotten (AmE)
make	made	made
say	said	said
come	came	come
see	saw	seen
know	knew	known
take	took	taken
give	gave	given
find	found	found
think	thought	thought
tell	told	told
write	wrote	written
speak	spoke	spoken
run	ran	run
break	broke	broken
begin	began	begun
buy	bought	bought
teach	taught	taught
bring	brought	brought
leave	left	left
feel	felt	felt
put	put	put
cut	cut	cut
read	read (pronounced "red")	read (pronounced "red")

Groups of irregular verbs

Many irregular verbs share patterns. Learning them in groups makes memorisation easier.

Pattern	Examples
All three forms the same	put–put–put, cut–cut–cut, hit–hit–hit, let–let–let
Past simple = past participle	buy–bought–bought, think–thought–thought, teach–taught–taught
All three forms different	go–went–gone, begin–began–begun, write–wrote–written
Base = past participle (not past simple)	come–came–come, run–ran–run, become–became–become