Frequently used irregular verbs in English. Regular and irregular verbs in English. Memory game

There are a huge number of languages ​​in the world. Why is English so popular? The speed of spread of English is influenced by its good structure and simplicity. However, even in this universal language there are phenomena that go beyond logic - these are irregular verbs.

These words come from the general rules for the formation of English verbs, and ordinary cramming is the only way to learn them, since a universal method for learning them quickly still does not exist. Irregular verbs just need to be remembered and that’s it. This is very inconvenient when mastering a language, but you can’t do without these 450-480 words, or rather, without 100-150 of the highest frequency irregular verbs.

In simple terms, irregular verbs are “freedom-loving rebel verbs.” Moreover, they “revolt” only in complex temporary constructions in the future and present tense, as well as in sentences with past tenses. Fortunately, in the simple future and present, these words are no different from regular verbs.

All verbs in English are conjugated within 3-4 forms. As for irregular verbs, we are interested in them exclusively in cases of forms 2 and 3 - verb and participle in the past tense.

And here a completely logical question arises: how to determine a verb is correct or incorrect? And there is no clear rule here either. You will first have to learn a table of irregular verbs in English, consisting of at least 100 words. And those words that are not on the list will be correct. That's all the grammar is!

At first glance, everything seems simple. But the table contains 100 words, and each has 3 forms: infinitive, past tense and participle, therefore, you will have to learn at least 300 irregular verbs. But this is not all, but only the most used ones! This fact will undoubtedly pacify the ardor of those who decided to conquer the table in one go.

But if you download this table and constantly repeat the words and use them in speech, then you will understand that everything is not so scary. The main thing here is a great desire and a little hard work and patience. The more often you use these 100, or rather 300, irregular verbs in speech, the more reliably and quickly they will stick in your memory.

Table of 100 irregular verbs

(You can download and print this table or save it on your computer and repeat it from time to time)

Continued in the article

The verb is the king of the English language. Even the shortest sentence always contains a verb. Conversely, a verb can be used to form a one-word sentence, for example “ Stop!” (“Stop!”).

Verbs are sometimes called "action words." This is partly true. Many verbs convey the idea of ​​action, of “doing” something—for example, “ run” (run), “ fight” (fight), “ do" (do), " work" (work).

But some verbs mean not action, but existence, not “doing,” but “being.” These are verbs like “ be" (be), " exist" (exist), " seem” (seem) “ belong”(belong).

A subject is attached to a verb as a predicate. So, in the sentence “ Mary speaks English” (“Mary speaks English”) Mary is the subject and the verb speaks - predicate.

Thus, we can say that verbs are words that explain what the subject does ( does) or what/what is ( is), and describe:

• action (" John plays football” - “John plays football”);
• state (" Ashley seems kind” - “Ashley seems kind”).

Verbs in English have one peculiarity. Most words in other parts of speech - , etc. - do not change (although nouns have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change according to grammatical forms. For example, the verb “ to work” (“work”) five forms:

• to work, work, works, worked, working

Note, however, that this is not much compared to languages ​​in which one verb can have 30 or more forms (for example, Hungarian) - if you have started learning verbs in , you can breathe a sigh of relief.

100 main verbs in English

Below is a list of 100 basic English verbs. It will be useful to first learn these most popular verbs in the English language. The verbs in the table are given in descending order of frequency of use:

I’ll tell you a secret: regular and irregular verbs of the English language are the most “favorite” topic of teachers and students when studying English grammar. Fate would have it that the most popular and frequently used words in English speech were incorrect. For example, the famous phrase “to be or not to be” also contains an irregular verb. And that's the beauty of the British :)

Just take a second and imagine how wonderful it would be to add an ending -ed to main verbs and get the past tense. And now all English students are destined to take part in an exciting attraction - memorizing a convenient table of irregular verbs in the English language with translation and transcription.

1. IRREGULAR VERBS

Meet their royal majesty irregular verbs. You won’t have to rant about them for a long time. You just need to accept it and remember that each verb has its own forms. And it is almost impossible to detect any logical connection. All that remains is to put the table in front of you and learn, just as you once memorized the English alphabet.

It’s good that there are verbs where all three forms coincide and are pronounced the same (put-put-put). But there are especially harmful forms that are written as twins, but are pronounced differently (read - read - read). Just as only the best tea leaves of the best varieties are selected for a royal tea party, we have collected the most commonly used irregular verbs, arranged them alphabetically, visually conveniently arranged them in a table - we did everything to make you smile and... teach. In general, only conscientious cramming will save humanity from ignorance of English irregular verbs.

And to make memorization not so boring, you can create your own algorithms. For example, to begin with, write down all the verbs where the three forms coincide. Then those where the two forms coincide (these are the majority, by the way). Or, let’s say, today you learn words starting with the letter “b” (don’t think anything bad), and tomorrow - a different word. No limits to imagination for those in love with English!

And without leaving the cash register, we suggest you take a test on your knowledge of irregular verbs.

Table of irregular verbs in English with transcription and translation:

After this video you will love learning irregular verbs! Yo! :) ...for those who are impatient, it is advisable to watch from 38 seconds

For fans of the advanced teacher and rap lovers, we offer a backing track for a personal way of learning irregular verbs in karaoke style, and in the future, perhaps, for recording a new personal video with your teacher/teacher/class. Weak or not weak?

2. REGULAR VERBS

When the most difficult part in the form of irregular verbs is mastered (we want to believe that this is the case), you can crack the regular verbs of the English language like nuts. They are called so because they form the past tense form and participle II in exactly the same way. In order not to overload your brain once again, we’ll simply designate them as form 2 and form 3. And both of them are obtained using the ending - ed.

For example: look - looked,work - worked

2.1 And for those who like to get to the bottom of everything, you can conduct a brief educational program about the mysterious term “participle II”. Firstly, why participle? Because how else can we designate a three-headed dragon, which has the characteristics of 3 parts of speech at once: verb, adjective and adverb. Accordingly, such a form is always found WITH PARTS (at once with three).

Secondly, why II? Because there is also I . Quite logical  Only participle I has an ending -ing, and participle II has the ending -ed in regular verbs, and any ending in irregular ones ( written , built , come ).

2.2 And everything would be fine, but there are some nuances.

If the verb ends in -y, then you need an ending -ied(study - studied).
. If the verb consists of one syllable and ends in a consonant, then it is doubled (stop - stopped).
. The final consonant l is always doubled (travel -travelled)
. If the verb ends in -e, then you only need to add -d(translate - translated)

For those who are especially picky and attentive, you can also add pronunciation features. For example, after voiceless consonants the ending is pronounced “t”, after voiced consonants - “d”, after vowels “id”.

Perhaps you have heard/invented/read/seen a method that allows you to reduce effort to a minimum and maximize the efficiency of memorizing irregular verbs, but for some reason we don’t know it yet. Share not only your smile, but also your cramming options to please each other with something interesting

To successfully learn a foreign language, it is necessary to lay a certain foundation consisting of basic skills. In addition to vocabulary and developed pronunciation, this basis also includes grammatical knowledge. Undoubtedly, the most important thing for English grammar is the system of tenses and verb forms, without the knowledge of which not a single sentence can be constructed. Today, while studying the topic, we will combine a set of vocabulary with mastering grammar, as we will analyze one of the most necessary basic concepts - irregular verbs of the English language. Let's look at the essence of the phenomenon, and also provide a list of all the necessary words with transcription and translation into Russian.

In order to answer the question posed in the title, let’s take a short excursion into theory.

English verbs have several basic forms that help form tense aspects:

1. Infinitive – it’s the initial, dictionary form. ().
2. Past indefinite – a form for expressing past events. According to the rule, it is formed by adding the ending –ed to the infinitive. ().
3. Past participle – a form necessary for the formation of perfect tenses and passive voices. According to grammatical norms, it must coincide with the previous category, i.e. also add –ed. ().
4. Active participle – it is not always distinguished as a separate form, but it should be noted that these are verbs with the ending –ing, which are used in the tenses of the continuous group. ()

Today we are interested in the second and third items of the list, since they are responsible for the correctness or incorrectness of the verb. We have already noted that the general rule for forming past forms is to add the ending -ed. But, due to historical reasons, established language clichés do not always correspond to the norms, and it is much easier to accept exceptions than to try to change the established way of life. That is why there is such a thing as irregular verbs in the English language. English grammar calls this phenomenon irregular verbs.

Irregular verbs include those verbs in which the past tense form is not formed according to the general rule, that is, they are characterized by an atypical conjugation. Such verb forms have to be learned by heart, since they are individual for each case. It is noteworthy that the proportion of irregular English verbs used in speech is about 70%. This means that only 30% of all frequently used verbs obey the general rule.

This concludes the theory and moves on to the practical part, in which we will consider examples of irregular verbs in the English language with translation and transcription. This will allow you to combine learning vocabulary and working with pronunciation.

Learning irregular verbs in English

You're probably wondering how many irregular verbs you have to learn in English? We hasten to surprise you, because you probably did not expect to see such a number: there are over 450 representatives of the irregular type of formation of past forms. But don’t worry, we won’t learn the full list of irregular verbs, since more than half of the words in it have long been out of use in the modern language. There are approximately two hundred actively used words left, which we will divide into even smaller groups in order to master the material gradually.

The first 50 words for beginners

For beginners learning the language, it will be enough to familiarize themselves with a very small list of the most common verbs. This minimum will be enough for you to work with simple sentences in English. So that during training you do not have to be distracted by other rules, next to the example we will indicate how the word is read in English, and also roughly explain which Russian sounds correspond to English letters. Russian transcription will be presented only in this section, since further study requires a higher level of knowledge of a foreign language.

I started this article as a publication about the 50 most frequently used irregular verbs in the English language, but as I worked on it, it turned out to be an almost complete guide on how to start learning and mastering all the irregular verbs. Go!

Irregular verbs are some of the most commonly used words in English. There are 470 of them in total, including obsolete forms. Their inconvenience is that in the past tense they often look like a completely different word and it is difficult to find any rules to form the past form from a present tense verb.

How to overcome the problem? Remember, there is no other way. It makes sense to start with the most frequently used ones. Thus, by learning a minimum number of words, you will cover the maximum number of situations when knowledge of these words will help you out.

Below you will find the 50 most frequently used irregular verbs, but, as I said, in addition to this, you will also find below a detailed classification of all irregular verbs, which will help you cope with the task of memorizing more easily. Because Yet there is some logic hidden here.

Practical part:
The best way to learn irregular verbs—like all other words—is in the context of fictional or real stories from your life.

The scheme with the Past Simple, Present Perfect and Present Continuous tenses, which I published in my previous post, is ideal for composing such stories .

By practicing these tenses you will cover all forms of irregular verbs. In the Present Continuous is the regular form, in the Past Simple you need the past form, and to form sentences in the Present Perfect you must use the third form of the verb.

And this is that rare case when it is still possible to kill two birds with one stone, without compromising the result.

50 Most Frequently Used Irregular Verbs

To make it easier to memorize irregular verbs, it will be useful to know that they are all conditionally divided into 3 large categories according to their sound, as shown in the diagrams that you will find below:

1. A group of verbs whose three forms are all the same.
2. Verbs that are similar in sound, the forms of which are obtained using endings: “t”, “ght”, “d” or the second and third forms of which are the same.
3. Also consonant verbs with endings: “en”, “e/wn”, “i/a/u”.

A group of verbs whose three forms are all the same

When you start using these verbs in different tenses, it can be a little confusing that they are the same. Many people think, how then can you distinguish what time they are speaking to you, or how “they” will understand what time you are talking about.

The fact is that you hear and understand a lot in English from the context, and not by listening to any specific endings. And the fact that these words do not change does not at all interfere with understanding the interlocutor correctly. Practice a little with the pattern I mentioned above, and very soon you will get used to it and the embarrassment will pass.

Group with “t”, “ght”, “d” or the same 2nd and 3rd forms
The diagram is clickable, download it, use it for your health.

To understand why these verbs are grouped together, try reading a few of them quickly one after the other, and you will hear that despite the different endings, these verbs actually have something in common.

A group of consonant verbs with “en”, “e/wn”, “i/a/u”

The same thing applies to the previous group, if you read these verbs quickly one after another, you will feel the similarity in their sound.

For those who find it more convenient to keep all these verbs in one diagram, you can find the picture below where all these verbs are combined into one mind map.

Large combined scheme of irregular verbs

To complete the topic, for those who are ready to go further and not be limited to a list of the first 50 irregular verbs, I am also pleased to post a more complete list of the 200 most popular irregular verbs.

These verbs lend themselves to the same classification as described above. If you decide to learn them, the methods for the first 50 words will work just as well for the rest.

At the end of the article you can also find links to complete reference books of irregular verbs. There are 470 of them in the English language, 370 of which are part of modern English, and 100 are considered obsolete and can be used like regular verbs (that is, this will not be an error).

200 frequently used irregular verbs