100+ regular and irregular verbs in English

Regular and irregular verbs can be challenging for people learning English. But don’t worry—Duolingo is here to help! With this guide, you will be ready to use any verb you need 💪

In this post:

• Regular vs. irregular verbs in English
• Rules for regular verbs
  • Examples of regular verbs
• Patterns for irregular verbs
  • Examples of irregular verbs
  • No change in the past forms
  • Past forms ending in the letter -t
  • Past forms ending in the sound “d”
  • -ee / -ea becomes -e- in the past forms
  • V + -w becomes -ew and -awn/-own in the past forms

What are regular and irregular verbs in English?

Many English verbs follow a simple pattern to form the simple past and past participle. We call these regular verbs:

However, not all verbs in English follow this pattern of adding -ed to the base verb. Instead, they have unique forms for the simple past and the past participle that have to be memorized. These are called irregular verbs. 

Regular verbs in English

To express that something has happened in the past, you simply add -ed to the base verb. This ending is pronounced as “t,” “d,” or “id,” depending on the sounds that precede it.

Unlike in the simple present tense, where the third person singular adds -s to the base verb, the past tense forms are the same for all persons. Compare how the base verb cook changes between the present tense and the past tense:

Some regular verbs undergo spelling changes when forming the simple past and past participle.

Regular verbs that end in -e add -d in the past forms

For example, if the base form of a regular verb already ends with an -e, you simply add -d to form the past:

Regular verbs with C + -y change the -y to -i in the past forms

If the base form of a regular verb ends with a consonant followed by -y, change the -y to -i and then add -ed:

Regular verbs with C+V+C double the last consonant in the past forms

Finally, if the base form of a regular verb ends with consonant + vowel + consonant, you usually double the last consonant and then add -ed:

Examples of regular verbs

Now that you understand how to form regular verbs in the simple past and past participle, use the table below to become familiar with common regular verbs:

Irregular verbs in English

As you now know, irregular verbs don’t follow the regular -ed pattern to form the simple past and past participle. Instead, they have unique forms.

For example:

Luckily, many irregular verbs can be grouped by patterns. Recognizing these patterns makes it easier to learn irregular verbs!

Irregular verbs with no change in the past forms

For instance, some verbs follow a pattern where all three forms of the verb (the base, simple past, and past participle) are the same:

Irregular verbs with the past forms ending in -t

In other cases, the simple past and the past participle forms of a verb are the same and both end in -t instead of -ed:

Irregular verbs with the past forms ending in "d"

Sometimes, the simple past and the past participle forms of the verb are the same, where both end with the sound (and not necessarily the letter!) “d”:

Irregular verbs where -ee / -ea becomes -e- in the past forms

Another pattern is for the -ee or -ea in a base verb to change to -e- in both the simple past and past participle forms of the verb:

Irregular verbs where V + -w becomes -ew and -awn/-own in the past forms

Lastly, if an irregular verb ends in a vowel followed by -w, the two are changed to -ew in the simple past form and -own or -awn in the past participle:

Examples of irregular verbs

In addition to the irregular verb patterns above, here is a table of many common irregular verbs:

Regular practice makes perfect

With so many verbs, it can feel hard at first. But with this guide and a little bit of practice, you will be a verb expert in no time!