Irregular past verbs in English can seem tricky because they don't follow the usual “-ed” pattern. But don’t worry — with some practice, you can master them!

What Are Irregular Past Verbs?

Irregular past verbs change form instead of adding “-ed” (e.g., “go” → “went”).
These changes don’t follow a single rule, so they must be memorized.
Irregular past verbs are used in both the simple past tense and the past participle form.

Examples of Common Irregular Past Verbs

Base Form	Past Simple	Past Participle	Example Sentence
go	went	gone	She went to the park yesterday.
eat	ate	eaten	I have eaten breakfast already.
see	saw	seen	They saw a movie last night.
take	took	taken	He has taken the book.
write	wrote	written	She wrote a letter.
be	was/were	been	I was at home.
have	had	had	We had a great time.
come	came	come	He has come to the party.

Rules and Tips

Use the past simple form for actions completed in the past (e.g., “I saw a dog”).
Use the past participle form with “have/has/had” for perfect tenses (e.g., “I have seen that movie”).
Some irregular verbs have the same form in past simple and past participle (e.g., “had,” “taken”).
Practice past tense sentence patterns: Subject + verb (past simple) + rest (e.g., “She wrote a letter”).

Avoiding Common Mistakes

Don’t add “-ed” to irregular verbs (e.g., correct: “went,” incorrect: “go-ed”).
Don’t confuse past simple and past participle forms (e.g., correct: “I wrote,” correct: “I have written,” incorrect: “I have wrote”).
Use the correct subject-verb agreement in the past tense (e.g., “He went,” not “He goes”).

What is a common subject-verb mistake in the past tense?

Placing the verb at the end of the sentence.

Using present tense forms like “goes” with past time words.

Adding “-s” to all past verbs.

Using base form verbs in questions.

Using present tense forms like “goes” with past time words.

In past tense, verbs do not take -s. Saying “He goes” for a past action is incorrect; use “He went.”

Choose the correct sentence:

I have written a report.

She wrote a report yesterday.

I have wrote a report.

She written a report.

I have written a report.
She wrote a report yesterday.

Use the past participle “written” with “have” (perfect tense) and the simple past “wrote” without it.

Practice Exercise

Fill in the blanks with the correct past simple form:

Yesterday, I _ (take) the bus to school.
She _ (write) a poem last night.
They _ (see) a shooting star.
He _ (go) to the gym in the morning.
We _ (eat) pizza for dinner.

Last updated: Wed Jun 18, 2025