Regular and irregular verbs

See also PDF exercises below.

Past simple

Regular + irregular verbs Exercise 1

Regular + irregular verbs Exercise 2

Irregular verbs Exercise 3

Past simple + past participle

Irregular verbs Exercise 4

Irregular verbs Exercise 5

PDF exercises (worksheets)

Regular verbs PDF exercise 1 - 2 + Key to regular verbs Changes in spelling of regular forms.

Irregular verbs PDF exercises 1 - 2 + Key with answers 1 Past simple: Fill in the missing forms. Find the past tense in the word chain.

Irregular verbs PDF exercise 3 - 4 + Key with answers 2 Past simple and past participle: Complete sentences with words in brackets. Correct mistakes.

Irregular verbs PDF exercise 5 - 6 + Key with answers 3 Past simple and past participle: Fill in the missing forms. Complete sentences.

Regular and irregular verbs list PDF

Regular verbs list PDF with spelling changes (like - liked, copy - copied, chat - chatted).

Irregular verbs list PDF A basic list of the most common verbs used in everyday English.

Full list of irregular verbs PDF The more complete list which is longer than the first one.

You can download all three regular and irregular verbs lists for free.

1. The regular past simple tense in the English language is usually formed by -ed ending (work - worked, stay - stayed). It is the same for all persons, singular and plural: I started, you started, he started, we played, they played.

The spelling rules

a) We add -d (not -ed) to the word that ends in -e. Examples: like - liked, love -loved.

b) If it ends in a consonant and -y, we change -y into -i. Examples: carry - carried, try - tried.
But: play - played, because it ends in a vowel and -y.

c) If the regular verb has only one syllable and ends in a single vowel and a consonant, we double the consonant to keep the same pronunciation. Examples: stop - stopped, fit - fitted.

The same rule applies to expressions with more syllables if the stress falls on the last syllable: ad'mit - admitted, pre'fer - preferred.
But: 'enter - entered (the stress is not on the last syllable).
In words ending in -l the consonant is always doubled after a single vowel: travel - travelled.

2. The regular past participle is the same. It is also formed by -ed ending (worked, stayed). It is used in perfect tenses and passive voice: I have started, you had started, he will have started, it was started.

There are basically three irregular verb forms in English:
1.The base form (or the bare infinitive): draw, lead, read, dream
2. The past tense (also called preterite): drew, led, read, dreamt or dreamed
3. The past participle (sometimes called perfect participle): drawn, led, read, dreamt or dreamed

As you can see from the examples above, some of the forms are completely different (draw - drew - drawn), some have a different infinitive, but the two other ones are the same (lead - led - led), some have the same spelling, but different pronunciation (read - read - read), some can be both regular and irregular (dream - dreamt/dreamed - dreamt/dreamed) and some have the same spelling and pronunciation (set - set - set).