Irregular verbs in English

Before we look at the form of the irregular verbs, let’s do a very quick revision of regular verbs:

Form of regular verbs

To form the past simple and past participle, we add “ed” to the base form:

Base form: work
Past form: worked
Past participle: worked

That’s easy! Now let’s look at the irregular verbs in English. We’ll start with the verb “be” because it’s a special case.

Verb “be”

The verb “be” is a special case because its form changes depending on the subject:

Base form: be

Present simple:
I am
you are
he is
she is
it is
we are
you are
they are

Past form:
I was
you were
he was
she was
it was
we were
you were
they were

Past participle: been

Form of other irregular verbs

In English, there are many irregular verbs. By definition, irregular verbs do not follow any logical rules. In this section, you will learn over 40 irregular verbs. For the correct pronunciation of each verb, watch the video at the end of this lesson, below the table.

Base form	Past form	Past participle
begin	began	begun
break	broke	broken
bring	brought	brought
buy	bought	bought
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
cost	cost	cost
cut	cut	cut
do	did	done
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
feel	felt	felt
find	found	found
get	got	got (British English) gotten (American English)
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
have	had	had
hold	held	held
keep	kept	kept
know	knew	known
leave	left	left
lose	lost	lost
make	made	made
meet	met	met
pay	paid	paid
put	put	put
run	ran	run
say	said	said
see	saw	seen
sell	sold	sold
send	sent	sent
sit	sat	sat
speak	spoke	spoken
spend	spent	spent
take	took	taken
teach	taught	taught
tell	told	told
think	thought	thought
understand	understood	understood
wear	wore	worn
win	won	won
write	wrote	written