UU.3 Identify the irregular past tense
What is verb tense?
Verb tense tells when an action happens. It can show that something happens now (present), already happened (past), or will happen later (future).
- Present: I walk to school.
- Past: I walked to school.
- Future: I will walk to school.
In this lesson, you will focus on verbs that tell about the past.
Regular and irregular past tense verbs
Some verbs form the past tense by adding -ed. These are called regular verbs. Other verbs change in a different way. These are called irregular verbs.
- Regular: jump → jumped
- Regular: clean → cleaned
- Irregular: go → went
- Irregular: see → saw
Irregular verbs do not follow one simple rule, so they must be learned and practiced.
What are irregular past tense verbs?
Irregular past tense verbs are verbs that do not end in -ed when they describe actions that already happened.
- eat → ate
- run → ran
- take → took
- come → came
The spelling of irregular verbs changes, but the meaning stays the same.
Different ways irregular verbs change
Irregular verbs can change in different ways when used in the past tense.
- Vowel change: sing → sang
- Whole word change: go → went
- No change: cut → cut
Even when a verb does not change spelling, it can still be past tense.
Using irregular past tense verbs in sentences
Irregular past tense verbs are used to tell about actions that already happened.
- Yesterday, I ran to the park.
- She ate her lunch early.
- They went to the library after school.
Words like yesterday, last night, and ago often signal past tense.