Irregular Verbs — The Master List (200 Verbs)

Regular verbs add -ed and go home (work–worked–worked). Irregular verbs break the rules — but they break them in PATTERNS. This list is organised by pattern, not alphabet, because the brain stores sounds in families: sing–sang–sung pulls ring–rang–rung along for free. Learn one family a day, chant the three forms aloud, and write one sentence with any V3 (the form your Perfect tenses and passives from Modules 1 and 6 run on).

V1 = base (go), V2 = past (went), V3 = past participle (gone) — the form after have/has/had and after be in the passive.

all three forms identical (24 verbs)

The easiest family. One warning: READ keeps its spelling but changes its sound — ‘red’ in V2/V3.

V1 and V3 same, V2 different (3 verbs)

V2 = V3 (the biggest family, 78 verbs)

Learn the sound sub-groups: the -OUGHT/-AUGHT six, the -T enders, the -D enders, and the vowel- swappers.

3A. The -ought/-aught six:

3B. The -t enders:

3C. The -d enders and vowel-swappers:

all three forms different (95 verbs)

4A. The i–a–u singers (chant them — they rhyme):

4B. The -ew/-own flyers:

4C. The -oke/-osen changers:

4D. The -ove/-iven drivers:

4E. The -en army:

4F. The one-of-a-kind VIPs (no family will have them):

Week 1: Families 1–2 (27 verbs). Week 2: Family 3 in its three sound-groups. Weeks 3–4: Family 4, one sub-group per day. Daily drill: pick 5 verbs, say V1–V2–V3 aloud three times, then write one Present Perfect sentence (has/have + V3) and one passive sentence (be + V3) — the two structures from Modules 1 and 6 that live or die on the V3 form.