Irregular English verbs write. Regular Verbs

The correct and irregular form of the verb in English is a phenomenon unusual for native Russian speakers. It is important to learn to determine which group a particular word that describes an action belongs to.

Characteristics of regular verbs

English has a complex system of 16 grammatical tenses. In the process of the formation of the language, a complex system of conjugations with many endings gradually disappeared, as a result of which most verbs became regular. This feature of them is observed in the way the Simple Past Tense, Past Simple, and the Past Participle, Past Participle are formed.

The last form is used in various constructions from Present Perfect (Real Complete), Passive Voice (Passion voice) to type 3 conditional sentences.

Regular verbs add -ed to form Past Simple and Past Participle: look-looked (look), paint-painted (draw, paint).

The spelling of the ending obeys the rule:

• -e at the end of the base is removed: change-changed (change), love-loved (love), improve-improved (improve);
• the final consonant is doubled if there is a short stressed vowel in front of it: prefer-preferred (prefer), drop-dropped (drop);
• -y at the end is replaced by -i when it comes after a consonant: carry-carried (transfer), marry-married (marry), worry-worried (worry).

Added to these features is the -ed pronunciation, which also causes many problems. This ending conveys three sounds:

• /t/- for verbs ending in voiceless consonants: stop-stopped, look-looked, reach-reached;
• /d/- when there is a voiced consonant or vowel at the end of the stem: cry-cried (shout, cry), open-opened (open);
• /id/- for verbs with -t or -d: spot-spotted (notice), decide-decided (decide).

There are more regular verbs in English than exceptions. The only difficulty is learning the rules for adding and reading -ed.

Characteristics of irregular verbs

Unlike the words that form Past Simple and Past Participle according to the rule, these verbs, in the process of forming modern English, have retained some features of ancient word forms. For this reason, about 470 representatives of this part of speech do not add -ed, but change the stem itself. Such transformations include:

• root vowel alternation: drink-drank-drunk (to drink), swim-swam-swum (to swim);
• changing the root vowel and adding an ending: give-gave-given (to give);
• syllable contraction: meet-met-met (meet), choose-chose-chosen (choose);
• base transformation: buy-bought-bought (buy), catch-caught-caught (catch);
• no change: cost-cost-cost (cost), cut-cut-cut (cut).

There are no recommendations on how to distinguish regular verbs from irregular English verbs in the initial form. To help students, many pivot tables have been created that need to be learned. For an elementary level of English, it is enough to know the 50 most common irregular verbs.

What have we learned?

Regular and irregular verbs in English differ in the way they form the Past Simple and the Past Participle. The second group of words must be learned in order to successfully master English.

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English is the language of exceptions, where when studying a new grammatical rule, students are faced with a dozen buts in which this rule does not work. One of these rules is the use of irregular verbs in the past tense. For many English learners, this topic is a nightmare. But without them it is impossible, 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 will consider in the article.

Why are English verbs irregular?

The difficulty in using irregular verbs is experienced not only by foreigners, but also by the speakers themselves. Nevertheless, for English philologists, the non-standard nature 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 a traditional variant of the language. For comparison, the Americans are trying with might and main to get rid of the wrong form, converting it into the correct one. Therefore, the list of non-standard verbs increases for those who learn both variants 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?

Speaking about verbs in English, 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 Past Perfect, Passive Voice and Conditional 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 the 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 forms of the verb in English. Regular verbs" will help you better understand this rule.

When forming the forms Participle I and Participle II, there are some features:

• 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 followed by a consonant, then y is changed to i before adding -ed.

Irregular verbs are those that do not obey the general rule when forming temporary forms. In English, these include the simple past tense verb forms (Past Simple) and Participle II (Participle II).

Irregular verbs are formed with:

ablaut, in which the root is changed. Example: swim - swam - swum (swim - swam - swam);

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

the same or unchanged form. Example: cut - cut - cut (cut - cut - cut).

Due to the fact that each irregular verb has its own form of change, they should be learned by heart.

In total, there are 218 irregular verbs in English, of which approximately 195 are in active use.

Recent studies in the field of language show that rare verbs are gradually disappearing from the language due to the replacement of the 2nd and 3rd forms with regular verb forms, that is, the addition of the ending - ed. This fact is confirmed by the table "Three forms of the verb in English" - the table represents 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 commonly used verbs. The table shows 3 forms and a translation.

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

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

Harvard researchers found that most of the verbs used are irregular, and they will remain so, as they are used more often than others.

In the history of the English language there is such a phenomenon when the correct 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 get into awkward situations when it comes to this difficult part of speech.

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

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

Therefore, do 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 commonly used verbs.

Examples of the use of 3 forms of verbs with translation

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

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

Exercises

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

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

Exercise 2. Before you is a table "Three forms of the verb 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. Then they moved to Manchester.
4. Alice was a university student in 2014.
5. They worked for 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, travelled, 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 were taken for a walk to this park.
8. I drove a toy car in my childhood.

Get in the habit of periodically repeating the basic forms of the English verb. A table with irregular verbs, exercises and periodic repetition will help you quickly cope with the difficulties of the English language.

Today's material will again be devoted to the great and powerful English verb. Why is the predicate in an English sentence given so much attention? Because it not only expresses any actions, but also indicates the time of their implementation. To be able to correctly convey the time of events, you need to know what regular verbs and irregular verbs are in English. This article will help you understand this important topic.

The English are very attentive to the delimitation of time moments, which is the reason for a large number of different verb forms and combinations. Let's remember the system of these tenses.

There are four main aspects in English:

• ( simple steps);
• Continuous ( ongoing processes);
• perfect( completed activities);
• Perfect Continuous ( actions are still in progress, but some results have already been obtained).

And in each of these paragraphs, respectively, the Present, Past and Future tenses are distinguished.

The classification into regular and irregular verbs in English is associated with the formation of the past in and all types of tenses in. So, let's get to the heart of the matter.

In English grammar there is a general rule for the construction of speech structures related to the past. According to this grammatical norm, every verb expressing past events must take the ending -ed. Moreover, this ending is the same both for the form in Present Simple, and for the past participle (Participle I), with the help of which constructions in Perfect are formed.

But, sometimes it happens that the original use of words is firmly entrenched in speech and does not want to obey any newfangled rules. This is what happened with English verbs. Due to historical traditions, about 470 words are an exception to this rule. Accordingly, this is where the division into regular and irregular verbs of the English language came from.

And if everything is clear about regular verbs, then the question arises, what kind of norm do irregular English verbs obey? But none. There is absolutely no rule, at least somehow generalizing the principles of their change.

For some irregular English verbs, the forms completely coincide with the infinitive. In others, too, everything is written the same way, but unexpectedly it is read differently. For the third, 2 types of the verb form coincide, and for the fourth, all three types have a different form.

To learn how to easily make sentences with such verbs, there is no other way out than memorizing all forms by heart.

As we have already noted, the English language has approximately 470 irregular verbs. But we naturally do not urge to learn them all. It is enough to get acquainted with the most common ones, of which, ironically, there are also many.

To facilitate understanding of this topic and further learning the language, in the next section we provide lists of popular English regular and irregular verbs. Skill comes with practice, so after a few lessons you will automatically use these words without thinking about rules and exceptions for a long time.

Popular regular verbs and irregular verbs in English

Let's consider 50 verbs of each kind, most often used by the English in everyday speech.

Regular verbs

Wrong

Now you are familiar with the most commonly used regular verbs and popular irregular verbs in English. Each table contains the minimum that beginners need. We recommend that you print this material and use it as a cheat sheet for making various proposals. After a few lessons, you yourself will not notice how you remember most of the words by heart.

Our topic today is an acquaintance with such an interesting phenomenon as the 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. French is also rich in irregular verbs. Three or four forms of irregular English verbs?

Romanian, German, Latin, Greek also contain 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 form, 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 simple past tense (Past Simple):

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

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

Even to the naked eye it is clear that each of these verbs appeared in its own, completely different from the others, form. The catch is that there is no specific rule by which you can find out the form of an irregular verb. Each of them hides in their own way. The English language, friends, is full of tricky things 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 perfect present tense (Present Perfect) and in the past tense (Past Perfect). The same form is used in the Passive Voice, 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 - rise
• To be - was, were - been - to be
• To bear - bore - born - give birth
• To become - became - become - become, become
• To begin - began - begun - begin
• To catch - caught - caught - catch, catch
• To choose - chose - chosen - choose
• To dig - dug - dug - dig, dig
• To dream - dream - dream - dream, dream
• To feel - felt - felt - feel
• To forget - forgot - forgotten - forget
• To have - had - had - to have

Now let's look at these 3 forms using examples of sentences in all of the above tenses of verbs.

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

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

• Perfect present tense of the verb (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.

• The past tense of the verb (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 papers.

• Passive voice (Passive Voice):

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

• Conditional mood of the 2nd and 3rd cases (Conditional). Here are the second and third forms:

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?

Irregular Verbs Cheat Sheet

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

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

To come-came-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-flew-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 thus make it easier for us to memorize them.

The "fourth" form of irregular verbs

There is a popular belief that there is also a 4th form of irregular verbs. This 4th configuration is formed according to the scheme base + ending -ing. It defines the Present Participle, that is, the present participle in tenses such as the present continuous (Present Continuous) and the past continuous (Past Continuous). In other words, this 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.

Consider this same 4th form using examples of sentences with Present Continuous:

The same 4th form in sentences with Past Continuous.

The division in English of verbs into regular and irregular is purely conditional, so there is no meaningful method for distinguishing them. This can only be done with the help of a dictionary, and the forms of irregular verbs will have to be memorized.

For example:

verb correct, so in the formula we add -ed;

verb wrong, this means that in the formula, in place of the semantic verb, we put the third form in a row;

the verb is irregular, but the second and third forms are the same (more on the second form below).

Sometimes all three forms can be the same:

This is how we work when translating from Russian into English, i.e. when we are looking for the right form. If we are translating from English, then the formulas will already contain the second or third form, and not Infinitive. In this case, we will not immediately find the translation of the word in the dictionary, since the translation is given only to the first (indefinite) form. But we'll get a hint. It looks like this:

1) ....[..] past from.... - the word past in such a dictionary entry means that we have the second form of such and such a verb:

• gave past from give - the translation should be looked for in the article give 2) ....[...] р.р. from .... - designation r.r. corresponds to the third form of the irregular verb:
• given r.r. from give - look for the translation in the article give

Usually at the end of English-Russian dictionaries there is a table of irregular (non-standard) verbs.

Only the very first formula of seven consists of one verb (which, by the way, makes it very easy and quick to distinguish it from all others), the rest - of two or three. In such formulas, verbs are divided into semantic (stand last) and auxiliary (stand before semantic).

The semantic verb is taken each time from the dictionary and strictly acquires the form given to it by the formula: ~~~~~~ing;

~~~~~~ed / 3rd form.

The auxiliary verb that takes the first place in the formula (to be or to have) constantly changes its form, thus showing the right tense.

The second auxiliary verb (in those formulas where it is: been / being) does not change in any way and serves only to make this formula different from others.

Remember:

• all formulas are indivisible, i.e. not a single detail can be thrown out of them, except for the particle to; we must perceive them as one Russian word;
• no additional details can be entered into the formula, each formula already has its own finished form;
• any structural change in the formula either leads to its disintegration (if something is thrown out), or to some new formation (if something is added), which makes it equally incomprehensible;
• each formula already contains some signs of the situations described, and we must understand them, as native English speakers do.

For example:

• to be ~~~~~~ing

Active Continuous - the action is performed by the subject and is long in nature. By changing the form of the first auxiliary verb (be), we get the time in which this action was performed, is being performed or will be performed. So with each formula. Now let's look at our example again:

• Mom is sleeping now.

Let's try to translate this sentence into English.

We perform all actions in a strictly defined sequence:

1. Using the rule of word order in an English sentence, we put the subject Mother in the first place (we take it from the dictionary or head).
2. In second place in the sentence should be the predicate. Here you need to think about what formula and how to put it correctly in the sentence. In almost any case, the ability to correctly transfer the picture of the described situation from Russian into English depends precisely on the predicate - we must always remember this.

We start the analysis according to the table:

• Active or Passive? – Active 1, 2, 3, 4 – ? – 2 (continuous)

After the second step, we find the formula we need specifically for our situation and fix it:

• to be + ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ing

We find the semantic verb in the dictionary / head: sleep (slept) - the verb is incorrect, but for this formula it does not matter, because here we must add -ing to any verb. We insert a semantic verb into the formula:

• to be sleeping

But the resulting formula is still in the Infinitive form, not denoting any time.

And we need to show that the action is happening at the present moment, i.e. mom is sleeping (not sleeping or will sleep) - Present. Pause in work - we do not know how to designate the time.

How to put the found formula in the time corresponding to the described situation

A little higher, we already said that the execution time of the action depends on the form of the first auxiliary verb (in some formulas - to be, in others - to have). This means that the first auxiliary verb must somehow change to show the right time. How? Here we again make a small digression and turn to the Russian language. In Russian sentences, all verbs change their form depending on three features:

• time (I asked, I ask, I ask);
• face (I ask, you ask, he asks);
• number (I ask, we ask).

These three features are also present in English sentences, but only the first auxiliary verbs change according to them, all the same to be and to have.