How to easily remember irregular verbs in English?

When learning a language, particularly the English grammar, irregular verbs are often a cause of confusion to language learners. Worry no more, because there are simple ways to remember and form the irregular verbs in English.

1. Create a list of regular and irregular verbs; study the trick.

If you have the list of both regular and irregular verbs in English, it would be easy for you to identify and form them. Remember that regular verbs are formed by adding “-d” or “-ed” in the base form of the verb. This means that irregular verbs are formed differently – spelling and pronunciation.

Group the irregular verbs according to their form and try to use them in sentences. Group them based on similar changes in the past and participle forms.

2. Start learning from the shortest words.

Don’t go directly to the hardest or longest irregular verbs in English. You can start from “go,” “see,” “run,” “sit,” and “do.” You don’t need to force yourself mastering all the heavy irregular verbs. Start from small, then slowly transition to 4-letter irregular verbs, and so on. It’s slowly, but surely.

3. Be your own sentence master.

You can make your own silly sentences and apply the learned irregular verbs in English. For example, “The cat ate all the forgotten cookies.”  If you analyze the sentence, the words ate and forgotten are irregular verbs, but actually, the word forgotten does not function as a verb. Its form however, is in the past participle.

Don’t mind your grammar; you’re still practicing. Perfect it later when you already know how to form the irregular verbs correctly in your sentences.

4. Why not test yourself?

Make your learning fun; turn on your memorization plans to a fun game. You can list down or pick at least 5 or 10 irregular verbs in English and put them in a flash card. Ask someone to play the game with you. For example, you can write the base form in the flash card and recite its past tense and past participle.

You can also join online quizzes to check your understanding and schemata of what you recently learned about irregular verbs in English.

5. Repeat, repeat, and repeat.

They say that the best way to learn a language is to repeat, repeat, and repeat it often to really stick to your mind. After learning how to form the irregular verbs in English, you make your own silly sentences and learn through games, then check if you made correctly structured sentences.

Repetition is the mother of learning, so try to list down sentences to repeat every day. There’s no need to rush.

There are many ways to practice and master the forms of irregular verbs in English. You should be focused and eager to learn them. Keep practicing and you’ll master them in no time.