How to differentiate Verbs
Let us understand what are regular and irregular verbs.
Regular verbs are verbs that follow a consistent pattern when conjugated in the past tense. For example, in English, these verbs typically add -ed to the base form to indicate past tense. For example, “walk” becomes “walked” in the past tense.
Irregular verbs are verbs that do not follow this consistent pattern. For example, in English, the verb “go” becomes “went” in the past tense, rather than adding -ed.
It’s important to note that different languages have different rules for these kind of verbs.
It would not be practical to give a comprehensive list of all verbs in the English language, as there are thousands of verbs and new ones are being created all the time. However, I can give you a list of some commonly used verbs to help you understand the concept.
Regular verbs:
- walk
- talk
- play
- work
- study
- watch
- listen
- dance
- sing
- cook
Irregular verbs:
- go
- be
- have
- do
- say
- get
- make
- know
- think
- take
Here are the base form (v1), past simple (v2) and past participle (v3) forms of some commonly used verbs in English:
V1, V2 and V3 forms:
- walk (v1) – walked (v2) – walked (v3)
- talk (v1) – talked (v2) – talked (v3)
- play (v1) – played (v2) – played (v3)
- work (v1) – worked (v2) – worked (v3)
- study (v1) – studied (v2) – studied (v3)
V1, V2 and V3 forms:
- be (v1) – was/were (v2) – been (v3)
- have (v1) – had (v2) – had (v3)
- do (v1) – did (v2) – done (v3)
- say (v1) – said (v2) – said (v3)
- go (v1) – went (v2) – gone (v3)
It’s important to note that this is not an exhaustive list and that there are many more examples of both types of verbs. Additionally, it’s also important to note that the v2 and v3 forms for irregular verbs are not predictable by a simple rule, so it’s necessary to memorize the forms of irregular verbs.
As a professional English teacher, I would recommend reviewing verb lists and practicing conjugating verbs in the past, present and future tenses. It is also important to practice and learn the irregular verbs as these are the most common and are used frequently in spoken and written English
