English irregular verbs are one of the most frustrating things for anyone learning a second language. To make it worse they are often some of the most common verbs that you need to know like: to be, to go, to do, to have. In fact, in English all of the verbs that are used as auxiliary verbs are irregular. So knowing about irregular verbs is very important for grammar as well as Vocabulary.
Learning English Irregular verbs
Julian from ‘Doing English with Julian‘ has some good advice on the learning English Irregular Verbs. He points out that in English classes we are normally taught to memorize the different principal parts of irregular verbs from tables. Sometimes these tables are very useful when we are doing exercises in class, but in the real world it is not that helpful. He says :
[quote]”… Just because you have memorized the table, it doesn’t mean that you have the knowledge that you need to to be able to apply those verbs in real life, English use or communication.”
He goes on to talk about how children learn English Irregular Verbs, saying that they learn them just like other vocabulary. So not as one verb with different forms or principal parts but different words with different meanings used in different contexts. I think he is right and that certainly seems to match up with how our thought processes work.
But the problem is that is we want to look up an irregular verb, the information is always presented to us in the table form. So, when you learn English irregular verbs remember not to just learn the words but also to think about the context that you would use them. Ask yourself a question with that verb and say your answer out loud.
For example, you just looked up the verb ‘to drive’
Here are the principle parts:
- Base: drive
- 3PS: drives
- Past Simple: drove
- Past Participle: driven
- Present Participle: driving
Remember that even with irregular verbs the 3PS form and the Present Participle form are always regular. So we can focus our efforts on remembering the Past Simple and Past Participle.
Say to yourself: “Where did I drive to yesterday?” then answer: “I drove to work”. “How does the boss get to work?”, “He is driven”.
The act of sating these sentences out loud will help you to put the information into the relevant part of you memory so that when the situation comes up the word should be easier to remember. So the idea is we are training our brain to not instinctively want to look at a chart.
