Eps 9: Irregular verbs

Biim

Host image: StyleGAN neural net
Content creation: GPT-3.5,

Host

Troy Kennedy

Troy Kennedy

Podcast Content
This article discusses irregular verbs, their past simple and past participle forms, and how to conjugate them. There are fewer than 200 irregular verbs in English, and most of these are common words. The main takeaway is that regular verbs are easy to remember because they follow a predictable pattern, while irregular verbs require memorization of their past simple and past participle forms.
-
Irregular verbs contrast with regular verbs in that they do not follow typical past tense patterns or the same spelling rules. In fact, there is only one special verb form that applies to all irregular verbs - the simple past tense. This means that native English speakers must have a natural grasp of the irregular verb forms or use formulas to help them recall them. It also means that non-native English speakers must be able to memorize these verb forms in order to speak and write in English fluently. The good news is that, once you remember the past simple and past participle forms of each irregular verb, you can usually identify other related words by recognizing the pattern of their past tenses.
Irregular verbs are verbs which do not conjugate in the same way as regular verbs in the past tense. Instead, they often change the vowel, or add different suffixes to the stem word - like adding 'ed' to the end - to form their past tense. This is a remnant of Middle English, when more irregular verbs were used. For example, when forming the past tense of 'to swim', we shorten the vowel and add an 'ed' to create 'swam'. The stem word remains unchanged for both present and recent past tenses.
To form compound verbs, take irregular imperfect verbs and use past participle forms. The same formula used for most other verbs does not apply to irregular ones when conjugating them. Word jogging is one way to get the correct past participle words. Take the action word, create a tense, and follow a slightly different pattern than regular action words. For example, if you have broken your dish, the sentence would read "I have broken" rather than "I broke". Irregular verbs follow a pattern but it's slightly different from other verb forms and requires memorization of the past participle forms.
English language speakers use irregular imperfect verbs when they want to speak in the imperfective form, which is commonly used in everyday language. The most common words that are irregular are: be, have, do, say and go. To form the past participle for these words, English language speakers must memorize the different forms; for example: Be - was/were; Have - had; Do - did; Say - said; Go - went.
By studying the list of common irregular verbs and their conjugations, it is possible to see repeated patterns that can help with memorization. This can be done by using tables, charts, or other reference resources to quickly review the differences between American and British English forms. By doing this, it will be easier to remember the forms of regular verbs in their past tense as well as the irregular verb past participles. Providing a quick reference resource for learners of American English will help them remember the different forms for regular and irregular verbs when in their past tense form.
The infinitive form of a verb, which is the base form, typically ends with 'to'. Regular verbs, when in their past tense form, usually end with 'ed' and by applying a pattern to the verb it shows the base form. The following table shows the forms for regular and irregular verbs. The first column shows the base form of an irregular verb and ends with its base form. The past participle of that same verb is listed in the second column and it often ends with 'en', 'd' or 't'.
Irregular verbs are those verbs which do not follow the normal pattern of conjugation in the present tense. They have undergone few weak verb processes such as vowel shortenings, prefixed forms and additional contractions. Modal verbs are a special type of irregular verb that only has three forms: infinitive, past and participle. These verbs cannot be conjugated in the third person apart from a few exceptions like 'read' which can be conjugated as 'reads'. Irregular present tense forms of verbs are those that do not follow the normal way of forming the present tense and they must be memorized in the same way you would learn them for past tense.
They are derived from other irregular verbs or from switching regular verbs. Irregular past tenses and past participles are formed in a variety of ways. Some originally were strong verbs that changed their form in the past tense and others were Germanic weak verbs that acquired strong type forms for their past tenses and participles. Many of these continue to follow the strong conjugation pattern but the analogy tends to force some of them into a regular pattern, so you may appear differences in some verb forms. This tends to force some verb forms into regular patterns but they still maintain their original irregularity in certain tenses and participles. For example, the verb 'chide' is an irregular verb that changes its form differently depending on which tense it is used in. In the present tense it is 'chides', in the past tense it is 'chid' and its past participle is 'chidden'.
That is an irregular verb, meaning it does not follow regular conjugation rules. Irregular verbs occur in all Germanic languages, and we see them in modern English too. Pay attention to the verb forms and you'll notice that some of them have reduplicated forms which are the same for present and past tense .
Irregular verbs are common in English and can be found in dictionaries or online. They do not follow the regular pattern of 'adding ed' to form the past tense and past participle forms. Instead, they must be learned individually by heart. For example, the verb ‘to hear’ is an irregular verb because when forming its past forms , it does not reuse the regular verb ‘to hear’ but changes its spelling instead. An online extended list of irregular verbs, including rare ones, can be found on various websites and it is a great resource for those learning English. It provides a base form of the verb as well as its past and future tense forms.