A Simple Guide To Over 100 Irregular Verbs In English 

English verb conjugation is easy compared to many other languages. In the present simple, the verbs forms are all the same, apart from the he/she/it form. 

• I play 
• you play 
• he/she/it plays 
• we play 
• they play

And the past simple isn’t that much trickier. All you need to do for most verbs is add the ‘ed’ ending to the base form. So “play” becomes “played”, just as “walk” becomes “walked”. 

But languages are never that regular and predictable! In English, just like in every language there are exceptions, and so that means plenty of irregular verbs in English. 

In this post, you’re going to discover 105 English irregular verbs so that you know their forms and can use them correctly. Let's go!

Irregular Verbs In English 

Some verbs, like “to be” are highly irregular in many languages, and English is no exception. 

Just look at its present simple forms: 

• I am 
• You are 
• He/she/it is 
• We are 
• They are 

And the past simple and past participle forms of “to be” are just as irregular: 

• Past simple: was/were 
• Past participle: been 

A quick reminder – you use the past simple to talk about finished actions in the past: 

• Yesterday, I was at home all day.  

You use the past participle to create tenses such as the present perfect or past perfect: 

• Have you ever been to Paris? (present perfect = have/has + past participle) 
• Before my trip last summer, I had never visited New York before. (past perfect = had + past participle) 

You also use the past participle to make the passive forms in English: 

• The president has been shot (present perfect passive) 
• The victims were transported to the hospital by helicopter (past simple passive) 

Speaking of the past simple and past participles, these are the verb forms that tend to be highly irregular. So let’s take a look at them in more detail. 

While irregular verbs in English are a bit less exciting than topics such as English slang words or phrasal verbs in English, they're essential for communication.

List Of Over 100 Irregular Verbs In English With Examples 

In this list, you’ll discover the 105 most common irregular verbs in English with examples. These verbs are irregular because they don’t take “ed” in the past simple and past participle forms. 

As you go through this list, you might notice that some verbs are very easy to remember, because the base form, past simple and past participle are all the same! Examples include verbs like “bet” or “cost”. 

In other cases, you’ll notice that the past simple and past participle forms are the same, but the base verb is different. This is the case with verbs like “deal/dealt/dealt” or “hold/held/held”. 

Unfortunately though, in some cases, all three verb forms are completely different, such as “begin/began/begun” or “freeze/froze/frozen”. 

Look out for these different patterns in the table below. And don’t panic if the number of verbs to learn looks overwhelming. I’ll share some strategies to learn them without memorisation shortly. 

How To Learn Irregular Verbs In English 

While this list is a great starting point, you’re not going to be able to learn, remember and use irregular verbs just by memorising it. Even if that’s what the grammar villain tells you to do. 

In fact, the best way to learn grammar is not to learn rules, but to immerse yourself in the language. Here at StoryLearning, you immerse yourself in English by reading short stories in English. 

As you read, you’ll see the most common irregular verbs in English over and over again. So you’ll learn them naturally, without having to memorise them. 

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.