Irregular Verbs: Past Tense and Past Participle Guide

Some of the most common questions about English verbs are tiny. What is the past tense of know? Is it hung or hanged? Is the past of smile irregular? The questions repeat because English has a small set of very frequent verbs that refuse to follow the usual rule, and you meet them every day. The good news is that they are not random. They fall into three patterns, and once you see the patterns you learn them in groups instead of one at a time.

Regular and irregular verbs

A regular verb makes its past simple and its past participle by adding -ed. Walk becomes walked and walked. If the verb already ends in e, you add only -d, so smile becomes smiled and smiled. That is why smile is a regular verb: nothing about it breaks the rule, and the only thing to watch is the spelling.

An irregular verb breaks the rule in its past simple, its past participle or both. The reference article on the topic describes them as verbs with less common conjugations, and says that roughly 200 are in normal use. Two hundred sounds like a lot, but most learners need the same fifty or so, and many of those share a shape.

The three forms you need

Every verb has three forms worth knowing, because these are the ones that change. Grammar tables and worksheets often label them V1, V2 and V3, so the V3 of know is known:

• The base form (V1): know.
• The past simple (V2): knew. You use it alone, for something finished: I knew her years ago.
• The past participle (V3): known. You use it after have, has or had to make the perfect tenses, and after a form of be to make the passive: I have known her for years. She is known for her kindness.

For a regular verb the last two forms look identical, which hides the difference. For an irregular verb they can differ, and mixing them up is one of the most common errors at every level. I have went and I seen him yesterday both use the wrong form.

Pattern one: all three forms are the same

A small group of verbs never changes at all. Put, cut, set and let are the same in the base form, the past simple and the past participle.

These are the easiest to learn because there is nothing to remember except that there is nothing to change. The tense then comes from context or from a helping word: She put the keys on the table is the past, and She has put the keys on the table is the perfect.

Pattern two: the past simple and the past participle match

The biggest group has two forms: the base, and one shared form for both past uses. Buy becomes bought and bought. Catch becomes caught and caught. Think becomes thought and thought.

Notice that several of these end in -ought or -aught. Learning them together helps, and it also helps that the sound is the same in each. If you remember one, you can usually guess the others in the group.

Pattern three: all three forms are different

The last group is the one that causes the most mistakes, because you have to hold three words in your head. Know becomes knew and known. Sing becomes sang and sung. Take becomes took and taken. Do becomes did and done.

Many of these change a vowel in the middle, and the past participle often ends in -n or -en. That is a useful clue, not a rule. Sing and begin use -ung and -un instead, so check any verb you are unsure about.

A good test for this group is to put the verb after have. I have knew sounds wrong to a fluent speaker, and I have known sounds right. Trusting that sound is a skill you build by reading and listening, which is why spaced review works so well for verbs. You meet the form again and again until it feels natural.

Lie, lay and the two meanings of lie

The verb lie is a famous trouble spot because it is two different verbs with the same base form.

• To lie, meaning to recline: lie, lay, lain, lying. I lie down every afternoon. Yesterday I lay on the sofa. I have lain here for an hour.
• To lie, meaning to say something untrue: lie, lied, lied, lying. This one is regular. He lied about his age.

Then there is lay, which is a separate verb meaning to put something down: lay, laid, laid, laying. She laid the book on the desk. Notice that laid is also the colloquial past of lie in some speech, and the entry for lie in one open dictionary notes that this form can stand in for either past form of the reclining verb. In careful writing, keep them apart.

A simple way to keep them straight is to ask whether the verb needs an object. You lay something (a book, a plan, a table), so lay needs an object. You just lie down, with nothing after it. If there is something being put down, you want lay.

Hung or hanged

Hang also has two meanings, and each has its own past form.

• To suspend something, such as a picture or a coat: hang, hung, hung. She hung the picture on the wall.
• To execute someone by hanging: hang, hanged, hanged. The prisoner was hanged at dawn.

The same dictionary entry explains that until about the sixteenth century the past of this verb was hanged in every sense, and that today hanged is kept for the execution sense. For everyday use, hung is the form you need. The past simple of hang is hung, and so is the past participle, so the everyday forms are hang, hangs, hanging, hung, hung.

Die, died and dying

Die is regular: die, dies, died, died. Its present participle is dying, where the ie becomes y, as it does in lie and lying. Do not mix it up with dye, which sounds the same: dye, dyes, dyed, dyeing. The e stays in dyeing, which keeps it apart from dying.

Why some verbs stay irregular

Irregular verbs are mostly old words. The most frequent verbs in a language are used so often that they resist change, which is why be, have, do, go and know are all irregular, while newer verbs such as text or email are regular. Knowing this is a comfort: when you learn a new verb, assume it is regular. The irregular ones are the old, common ones you will meet constantly anyway.

A way to learn them

Sorting verbs into the three patterns turns a list of 200 into three shapes. Try this:

1. Write each verb you meet on a card with its three forms and one sentence that uses the past participle after have.
2. File it under its pattern: same, two-the-same or all-different.
3. Review a few cards each day, and say the forms aloud.
4. Retest the ones you miss after a day, then after three days, then after a week.

Sentences matter more than lists. A verb in a sentence also teaches you which words go with it, and learning collocations works the same way. If two verbs keep confusing you, put them side by side in one sentence, the way the confused word pairs guide does, and write which is which.

Practice set

Choose the correct form, then check the answers.

1. Yesterday I ______ the whole book. (read / readed) Hint: the spelling stays the same.
2. She has ______ her keys again. (lost / losed)
3. They ______ all the way to the lake. (drove / driven)
4. He has ______ to Paris twice. (been / was)
5. I was tired, so I ______ down. (laid / lay)
6. The picture was ______ crooked. (hung / hanged)
7. What is the past tense of smile? Is it regular or irregular?
8. The judge said the man would be ______. (hanged / hung)

Answers: 1. read (pronounced like red, the spelling does not change). 2. lost. 3. drove (past simple; driven needs have). 4. been (past participle after has). 5. lay (you lie down, with no object). 6. hung (a picture is suspended). 7. Smiled, regular, because it only adds -d. 8. hanged (the execution sense).

Making it stick

Irregular verbs reward steady, small practice more than a long cram. A few minutes a day with the verbs you actually use will do more than a weekend with a chart. If you write often, the advice in vocabulary for writers shows how to turn the forms you have learned into cleaner sentences.

How Wordabulary fits in

Wordabulary finds your level with a placement assessment, then gives you practice and quizzes matched to it. Every word page shows the definition, an example sentence and related forms, and you can listen to each word in British or American English. It sits well beside your own reading, where you meet verbs in real sentences.