Feeling a bit Irregular with your Verbs?

Feeling a bit Irregular with your Verbs?

Are you down?  Feeling irregular?  Out of sorts?  Not yourself lately?  Try taking an irregular verb or two and having a rest...

Enough of this advertisement-inspired silliness.  As you know, English is a Germanic language, and thus -- like all of the Germanic languages in fact -- it contains a relatively large number of irregular verbs.  (If it's any consolation German and Dutch do too.)  This means that, to speak the language properly, you have to learn all of the different parts:

• Infinitive -- for most of the verbs, the infinitive will either be the same or very similar to the verb in all of its present simple forms, except for the mandatory "-s/-es" for the third person singular.
• Past-tense conjugation -- for all of the verbs, this will be the only form that you will need to make references to things, events, times, etc. in the simple past.  Most of the changes will be made in this category.
• Past participle -- for many, many irregular verbs, this will be the same as the past-tense conjugation, hence the need to learn them.  For other verbs, this form will be completely different and you will have to learn two mutations.

So how do you learn them?  That remains the question and remains to be seen.  First of all, you must have access to an irregular verb list with comments.  (Click on the link to see the list.)  Next, you must develop techniques to try and remember them.  Some of my recommendations:

1. Memorize them.
   Though I have to find them somewhere in my files, studies show that memorizing the verbs in their three main mutations is actually quite a good method.  I feel that this is true, but many students need to recite all three mutations (unpractical in modern discourse) when they need to use the verb.  It's up to you.
2. Organize them according to their mutations. I have a colleague who is learning English at this moment.  She has drawn up a sheet with verbs organized according to if they mutate:
1. No times at all (cut - cut - cut)
2. Once (bend -> bent = bent)
3. Twice (write -> wrote -> written)
3. Organize them according to their sounds.
   Personally, I like this method because it relies on your ear to train itself.  Some verbs have mutations that resemble each other, and you can memorize them more easily.  Take, for example:
1. The Germanic i - a - u:  
1. sing - sang - sung
2. sink - sank - sunk
3. shrink - shrank - shrunk
2. The -ght family:  caught - taught - bought - brought - fought - ought - sought (NB:  -aught and -ought are pronounced in exactly the same way.)
4. Learn them slowly, a couple at a time.
   Why on earth do you need to learn them all at the same time?  Take it slowly, familiarize yourself with the whole list, and learn a couple (3-5 each week).  You will end up learning more than you think!
5. Forget the archaic or barely-used ones.
   Oh my goodness, who needs to learn verbs like abide, kneel, rend or shrive?  (I didn't even know what the last one meant before I looked it up!).  If you have to make a choice, leave these out and concentrate on the more common ones.
6. Contextualize and repeat them through constant and consistent practice!
   This is something you should be doing every day with general vocabulary.  You will tend to write a new word down and its translation next to it.  However, if you write down an example -- either your own or taken from a different source -- you will see how the word is used in relation to others and be able to manipulate it on your own.
   
   
   You can also find some more suggestions on learning irregular verbs at this page.

Practice with irregular verbs:

1. At this page including the other links at the bottom.
2. At this page also, where you can register for even more exercises.
3. And here at this one.
4. Also here, and you get six pages for only one site!
5. You might want to finish with this one, since it is quite interactive an actually a lot of fun.
6. And just for good show, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one are among the exercises I recommend to my own students.

Check them out!