Grammar. Regular and irregular verbs

An English verb can be regular or irregular. Regular verbs form their past and past participle forms by adding –ed.

Examples are given below.

Walk – walked – walked

Dance – danced – danced

Paint – painted – painted

Work – worked – worked

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)