Irregular Verbs

                  There are approximately 180 irregular verbs. You don't need to learn all of them because some of these are very rare but many others are very useful and you do need to know them.

  All new verbs in English are regular.
     • I photocopied the report.
     • She faxed it to me.
     • They emailed everybody about it.
     • I googled my name and got more than 20 000 responses.

To remember irregular verbs; classify the irregular verbs into 4 categories.
  1. All forms the same (A-A-A)
        cost   cost    cost
        let      let       let
        put     put     put
        cut     cut      cut

  2. The second and third forms are the same (A-B-B)
       have    had     had
       pay     paid   paid
       say     said    said

  3. One change (A-B-A)
       show       showed       show
       come       came           come
       become    became       become

  4. Unclassified; All different (A-B-C)
       beat     beat     beaten
       eat       ate       eaten
       blow    blew     blown
       sing      sang     sung
       wake   woke    woken

       do       did        done
       be     was/were    been
       go       went         gone / been

                                One useful method is to note down new irregular verbs as you meet them. It is useful to write these verbs (or any vocabulary you want to learn) in sentences and learn those rather than the individual word. Which is easier to learn?
     • stick stuck stuck
     • I stuck the photo into my album.