To better understand what irregular verbs are, let’s first look at what a regular verb is.
A regular verb is any verb to which you add a “d” or “ed” in order to form its past tense. For example, if you want to change the verb walk to its past tense, you would just add an “ed”. Some other regular verbs are jump, work, and look.
If you can remember this rule for regular verbs, understanding what an irregular verb is becomes a bit simpler. You see, irregular verbs are verbs to which you would NOT add a “d” or “ed” when changing them to their past tense.
Instead, irregular verbs might need some type of spelling change, complete word change, or no change at all. The main thing to remember, though, is that you are not adding a “d” or “ed” to the end.
Swim is an example of an irregular verb. In order to form the past tense of swim, you’d need to change the spelling of the word. The past tense of swim is swam. Notice how we did not add an “ed”.
Read (pronounced red) is the past tense of read (reed) even though they are spelled the same. Because we are not adding a “d” or “ed”, the verb read (reed) is irregular.
Some other examples of irregular verbs are throw fall, and go.
Free eLearning Videos for Kids
