Difference Between Regular and Irregular Verbs

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The following article is related to verbs, mainly regular and irregular verbs. Let´s see how they are formed.

Verbs 

Are those words which express the action or state of the subject in a sentence. There are certain forms which a verb can take, called as ‘principal parts of verbs‘, these are infinitive, third person present, simple past, past participle and present participle. If you take a glance at these forms, you’ll notice that there are some verbs whose simple past and past participle have a set or fixed ending which are called Regular Verbs.

Conversely, there are certain verbs which either change their forms completely or remain the same, these are known as Irregular Verbs. Let’s take a read of these examples to understand the difference between regular and irregular verbs:

Definition of regular verbs

Regular Verbs refers to the verbs that depend on the basic pattern of inflection (or inflexion). Inflection means the variation in the form of a word, usually in the end, to describe the tense, mood, number, gender and so forth.

The formation of tenses in regular verbs, particularly the past tense forms, i.e. simple past and past participle, is done by adding a predefined suffix, i.e., -d, -ed, or -ied to the present infinitive. The rules are given as under:

• When the action word ends with a vowel, then -d is added to convert it into past tense. For example:

BASE FORM				SIMPLE PAST		PAST PARTICIPLE
Regular Verbs
Carry				Carried		Carried
Grab				Grabbed		Grabbed
Jump				Jumped		Jumped
Walk				Walked		Walked
Irregular Verbs
Break		Broke				Broken
Drink		Drank				Drunk
Eat		Ate				Eaten
Read		Read				Read

Definition of Irregular Verbs

An irregular verb is a type of strong verb, which has some special rules for creating past tense forms. So, these verbs do not end with -d, -ed, or -ied, rather they change their forms completely, in a sense that the irregular verbs are transformed into an entirely different word, as you can see in the example below:

Verb	3rd person singular present tense	3rd person singular past tense	past participle	present participle
be	is	was	been	being
begin	begins	began	begun	beginning
bite	bites	bit	bitten	biting
break	breaks	broke	broken	breaking
buy	buys	bought	bought	buying
choose	chooses	chose	chosen	choosing
come	comes	came	come	coming
dig	digs	dug	dug	digging
do	does	did	done	doing
drink	drinks	drank	drunk	drinking
eat	eats	ate	eaten	eating
fall	falls	fell	fallen	falling
feel	feels	felt	felt	feeling
find	finds	found	found	finding
get	gets	got	got	getting
go	goes	went	gone	going
grow	grows	grew	grown	growing
have	has	had	had	having
hide	hides	hid	hidden	hiding
keep	keeps	kept	kept	keeping
know	knows	knew	known	knowing
lay	lays	laid	laid	laying
lead	leads	led	led	leading
leave	leaves	left	left	leaving
lie	lies	lay	lain	Lying
lose	loses	lost	lost	losing
make	makes	made	made	making
meet	meets	met	met	meeting
put	puts	put	put	putting
read /ri:d/	reads	read /red/	read /red/	reading
ride	rides	rode	ridden	riding
ring	rings	rang	rung	ringing
rise	rises	rose	risen	rising
run	runs	ran	run	running
say	says	said	said	saying
see	sees	saw	seen	seeing
sell	sells	sold	sold	selling
set	sets	set	set	setting
sing	sings	sang	sung	singing
sit	sits	sat	sat	sitting
stand	stands	stood	stood	standing
stick	sticks	stuck	stuck	sticking
take	takes	took	taken	taking
teach	teaches	taught	taught	teaching
think	thinks	thought	thought	thinking
wake	wakes	woke	woken	waking

 Irregular verbs form their past and past participle forms in different ways.

There are mainly three types of irregular verbs:

·         Verbs in which all the three forms are the same (e.g. put – put – put)

·         Verbs in which two of the three forms are the same (e.g. sit – sat – sat)

·         Verbs in which all three forms are different (e.g. drink – drank – drunk)

Some verbs can be both regular and irregular. Examples are:

Burn – burnt – burnt (irregular)

Burn – burned – burned (regular)

Dream – dreamt – dreamt (irregular)

Dream – dreamed – dreamed (regular)

Lean – lent – lent (irregular)

Lean – leaned – leaned (regular)

Learn – learnt – learnt (irregular)

Learn – learned – learned (regular)

Leap – leapt – leapt (irregular)

Leap – leaped – leaped (regular)

Smell – smelt – smelt (irregular)

Smell – smelled – smelled (regular)

Spill – spilt – spilt (irregular)

Spill – spilled – spilled (regular)

Spoil – spoilt – spoilt (irregular)

Spoil – spoiled – spoiled (regular)

                                       Thanks for your attention!