Lesson thirteen

13.1     Irregular Verbs

Some verbs do not form the past by adding -d or –ed. These verbs are called irregular verbs. There are only about sixty frequently used irregular verbs. For many of these, the past and the past participles are spelled the same but some are different.

Examples:

He saw great misery all around him – past

He has seen great misery all round him – past participle

For a few irregular verbs, like hit and cut, the three principal parts are spelled the same.

These ones offer no problems to learners. Most problems come from irregular verbs with three different forms.

For example, the irregular verbs throw and ring.

Throw                          threw               had thrown

Ring                            rang                 had rung

If you are not sure about a verb form, look it up in the dictionary.

13.2     Exercise 13

Write the past tense and past participles of the following irregular verbs and then use each of them in sentences of your own.

  1. arise fall
  2. tear blow
  3. wear freeze
  4. lay fly
  5. see write
  6. fall
  7. blow
  8. freeze
  9. fly
  10. write