Irregular verbs list: 91 verbs you can actually use

Irregular verbs form their past tense and past participle without -ed: go — went — gone, buy — bought — bought. The table groups them by how their forms change. Verbs within each group follow the same pattern, so you can remember a new verb by analogy instead of memorising it in isolation.

Yet plenty of people know the table and still write I have went, Did you saw it?, or The window was broke when composing a sentence. They have learnt the forms but haven’t learnt to choose the right one as they write. That is exactly what LetsWords teaches: you build sentences with the verb, the trainer points out mistakes in verb forms and grammar, suggests a correction and explains it, and spaced repetition makes it stick.

Irregular verbs table with meanings

The first column is the base form, the second is the past tense (Past Simple), and the third is the past participle (Past Participle, or the “third form”).

Groups: all forms identical · second and third forms identical · all forms different · first and third forms identical.

All three forms are identical

The easiest group: the verb doesn’t change at all.

The forms of read have the same spelling but different pronunciations: [riːd] — [red] — [red].

The second and third forms are identical

The largest group. Once you have learnt the past tense, you know the third form too. Within this group, similar sounds make verbs easier to learn: bring, buy, catch, fight, teach, think all change to -ought / -aught.

Learnt occurs in British English; American English usually uses learned. Both forms are correct.

All three forms are different

You need to learn all three forms of these verbs, but there are patterns here too. Begin, drink, ring, sing, swim change their vowel following the pattern i — a — u: sing — sang — sung. Many verbs take -n in the third form: take — taken, write — written, know — known.

The first and third forms are identical

A small group: the third form is the same as the base form. That is why I have came is a common mistake; the correct version is I have come.

Which form goes where

Knowing a form won’t help if you put it in the wrong place. Four rules are enough.

1. Use the second form only in affirmative past tense sentences. I went to the gym yesterday.
2. After did and didn’t, use the base form. Did already expresses the past, so you don’t mark it a second time: Did you go?, I didn’t go.
3. After have, has and had, use the third form. I have gone, She has written, We had left.
4. In the passive voice and as an adjective, use the third form too. The window was broken, a broken window, It was written in 1990.

Common mistakes even after learning the table

• I have went to London. → I have been to London. After have, you need the third form: been if you have visited the place, gone if you have left for it and haven’t returned yet. Went is the second form and stands without an auxiliary verb: I went to London last year.
• Did you saw the message? → Did you see the message? After did, use the base form. The same mistake happens in negative sentences: I didn’t knew → I didn’t know.
• The window was broke. → The window was broken. The passive voice takes the third form.
• I laid on the sofa all evening. → I lay on the sofa all evening. Two verbs have been mixed up here: lie — lay — lain means to be in a horizontal position; lay — laid — laid means to put something down: I laid the book on the table.
• I have drank too much coffee today. → I have drunk too much coffee today. The second and third forms of drink, begin, swim, sing differ by just one letter, making them easy to confuse.

Other easily confused pairs: rise / raise, fell / felt, borrow / lend, win / beat, rob / steal.

People who know the table make all these mistakes. Recalling drink — drank — drunk in order is easy; choosing the right form while putting a thought into words is a different skill.

How to learn irregular verbs so you can use them

1. Learn in groups, not alphabetical order. Start with the group whose forms are identical, then bring — brought — brought and similar verbs, then the i — a — u pattern. Each new verb then builds on a pattern you already know.
2. Take 5–7 verbs at a time. The ones you need now are more useful than the other eighty.
3. Immediately write sentences about yourself with them. Not just “go — went — gone”, but I went to Edinburgh last summer and I have never been to Japan. Hulstijn and Laufer compared three tasks involving new words: reading, reading with gap filling, and composition. Writing a composition led to the best recall of the words.
4. Recall instead of rereading. Cover the table and retrieve the forms from their meanings. Karpicke and Roediger showed that repeated retrieval is what helps you remember what you have learnt over the long term.
5. Check the form when you compose a sentence. You probably won’t spot a mistake like I have went yourself: it feels correct because went is “the past tense”. Feedback on the sentence you have written will reveal it, and this is what practice in LetsWords is built around.

An example of LetsWords feedback: choose after have

You are learning choose and write about yourself:

I have chose this university last year because of its business school.

What the feedback shows. Two mistakes, both related to the verb form.

• After have, you need the third form: chosen, not chose.
• But Present Perfect is not used with a specified time in the past (last year). Here you need ordinary Past Simple with the second form.

The corrected version:

I chose this university last year because of its business school.

The feedback explains a rule you can apply in later sentences: if the event is tied to a time in the past, use chose; if the result matters now, use have chosen:

I have chosen a topic for my thesis, so now I can start writing.

You could have named all three forms of choose correctly in the table and still missed the mistake. It became visible when you used the verb yourself.

Why irregular verbs are easier to learn with LetsWords

Tables, flashcards and “choose the correct form” quizzes train recognition: the options are already in front of you, and you just need to find the right one. Speaking and writing come without those prompts: you have to choose the form yourself while expressing a thought. That is exactly what LetsWords trains.

• You use the verb yourself. Write a sentence with a verb from your set — for example, the group you are currently learning from the table — and get feedback: whether the form is correct, whether a different construction is needed, and how to sound more natural. The feedback explains the mistake, can be brief or detailed, and takes your goal into account: an exam or general English.
• You don’t need to think of something to write about. The generator suggests a sentence in your native language at your chosen difficulty level, and you translate it using the target verb.
• The verb keeps coming back until the form feels familiar. During review, you see the translation, recall the verb yourself and write a new sentence with it. Spaced repetition brings it back after intervals.
• Your verbs and vocabulary in one place. Add verbs from the table, TV shows and work emails to your collection and practise them just like the rest of your vocabulary in the LetsWords vocabulary trainer.

This way, went, gone and been stop getting mixed up in writing and speech, instead of simply being recited in the right order. The article on active vocabulary shows how this approach works with any words.

Start practising irregular verbs in LetsWords. When you join, answer a few questions about your goal and level, and LetsWords will select your practice. You can try the feedback before paying.