 Irregular verbs in English from espressoenglish.net Did you know that about 70% of the time when we use a verb in English, it's irregular? Irregular verbs can make you go crazy, but in fact, they follow some patterns. In this lesson, you'll learn groups of irregular verbs that will help you remember them better. The first group is irregular verbs with all three forms identical. These verbs are the same in the present, past, and past participle. One example is put. Present. I always put the milk in the refrigerator. Past. Yesterday I put the books in my backpack. The present perfect uses the past participle form. I've already put the documents in the mail. Other verbs with all three forms identical include bet, burst, cost, cut, fit, hit, hurt, let, put, quit, set, shut, split, and spread. The next group is verbs with identical present and past participle forms. The only different form is the past. Come, came, come, become, became, become, run, ran, run. A number of irregular verbs have N in the past participle. These can be divided into four subgroups, with O in the past and past participle, with O in the past only, verbs with the past form ending in EW and the past participle in OWN and other. Subgroup one, break, broke, broken, choose, chose, chosen, forget, forgot, forgotten, get, got, gotten, speak, spoke, spoken, steal, stole, stolen, wake, woke, woken, wear, wore, worn. In this subgroup the vowel changes to O in the past and past participle. Subgroup two has O in the past but not in the past participle, drive, drove, driven, ride, rode, ridden, rise, rose, risen, write, wrote, written. Notice that the sound of the I changes from the present to the past participle. The present is drive and the past participle is not driven but driven. Subgroup three, verbs ending in EW in the past and OWN in the past participle, fly, flew, flown, grow, grew, grown, know, knew, known, throw, through, thrown. Finally we have subgroup four, other. These verbs have N in the past participle but don't appear to follow any other pattern. Bite, bit, bitten, hide, hid, hidden, eat, ate, eaten, fall, fell, fallen, give, gave, given, see, saw, seen, shake, shook, shaken, take, took, taken. Another group of irregular verbs is verbs with pronunciation changes. For example, long E to short E. Keep, kept, kept, sleep, slapped, slapped, feel, felt, felt, bleed, bled, bled, feed, fed, fed, meet, met, met, lead, led, led. Another group has EA pronounced differently from the present to the past and past participle. Deal, dealt, dealt, mean, meant, meant, read, read, read, hear, heard, heard. Another group is when the long I changes to OU. Bind, bound, bound, find, found, found, grind, ground, ground, wind, wound, wound. Short I can change to U. Dig, dug, dug, stick, stuck, stuck, spin, spun, spun, sting, stung, stung. Two very common verbs sell and tell become sold and told in the past and past participle. Finally, we have the verbs with ought endings in the past and past participle. This can be spelled OUGHT or AUGHT, but the pronunciation is the same. Bring, brought, brought, buy, bought, bought, catch, caught, caught, fight, fought, fought, seek, sought, sought. Teach, taught, taught, think, thought, thought. Remember that the G is silent in these verbs. Verbs with three different vowels. In this group, the vowel changes from I to A to U. Begin, began, begun. Drink, drank, drunk. Ring, rang, rung. Shrink, shrank, shrunk. Sing, sang, sung. Sink, sank, sunk. Spring, sprang, sprung. Swim, swam, swum. Finally, we have the completely irregular verbs. These verbs don't follow any specific pattern, so you just need to memorize their past and past participle forms. The verb to be, is am, is or are in the present, was or were in the past and been in the past participle. Do, did, done. Go, went, gone. Have, had, had. Make, made, made. Thanks for watching English Tips from Espresso English. If you liked this video, please share it.