Irregular verbs in English cause understandable difficulties for many, to the point that they are forced to invent new ways to train their memory. How can you ease the difficult task of memorizing irregular verbs and make them not a stumbling block, but just one of the stages of learning a language?
English contains about 500 irregular verbs. Even if you learn one irregular verb a day, it will take about a year and a half. But there is no need to stretch this pleasure for so long. Firstly, many of them are outdated, and today only about 200 of them are actively used, in addition, many irregular English verbs change according to quite understandable and uniform rules.
Irregular verbs in English can be grouped into four groups:
1. The past tense form and the second participle are formed in the same way: the vowel at the root changes, and, as a result, the spelling of the ending changes. For example:
bring (bring) - brought - brought;
seek - sought - sought.
2. past tense form andthe second participle differ: in the past tense, the word at the root receives a diphthong sound, and when the participle is formed, the ending is also added:
speak (to speak) - spoke - spoken;
choose (to choose) - chose - chosen.
3. The easiest group: words that do not change in any way:
cut (cut) - cut - cut;
bet (bet) - bet - bet.
4. Irregular verbs with a changing consonant at the end:
bend (bend) - bent - bent
build (build) - built - built
Try to sort the irregular verbs into four tables yourself. The English language contains many other "samples" that cannot be "packed" into these groups, try to make separate tables for them. Although there are ready-made such tables on the Internet, it is better to "discover America" on your own - then you will not have to devote time to boring cramming.
This will only need to be done once. You won't have to drill anything. Although in schools, when teaching children English, this is exactly what is done. Children are given a list and are invited to simply automatically memorize a few irregular verbs. In the next lesson, the memorized is checked, and then a new "portion" is given. It is not surprising that irregular verbs with this approach begin to cause horror and disgust.
Remember: the stumbling block is not the irregular English verbs themselves, but the teacher's lack of imagination. If you are learning a languageon your own, you should not be like such a teacher and make a titanic effort on yourself, memorizing boring tabular rules.
Pay attention to the fact that almost all irregular verbs are included in the thousand most common words in the English language. And the most incorrect of them, which have no analogues and are inclined according to the original scheme, are generally included in a hundred. For example, the verbs to be (which is not only used in its direct meaning, but also as an auxiliary) and to have (similarly, it can be used not only as a verb with the meaning "to have"). By doing grammar exercises, reading interesting texts, you will memorize their forms without any effort and, moreover, save time. To "get acquainted" with irregular verbs, you can do the following exercises.
1. Take any interesting text, translate it using an online translator (or take a ready-made text with parallel translation) and underline all the verbs in various forms, write down the regular and irregular verbs separately. The latter can be recorded in a table.
2. Take any list of the most used or most common words in the English language. Such collections contain not only verbs. But irregular verbs will definitely come across there. Make up stories or sentences with these words. As you know, for successful communication it is enough to know 3 thousand English words. That is, with the help of this exercise, you will not only practice the use of the wrongverbs, but also lay a good foundation for your vocabulary.
3. Write a detailed story about your yesterday, consisting only of verbs, for example: "woke up, looked out the window, washed, brushed my teeth, fed the cat, stepped on the cat's paw, cooked breakfast, shaved, cut myself," etc. Translate this story into English. Or write in English right away, looking into the dictionary.
You can come up with many other exercises to practice grammar or to expand vocabulary, in which irregular English verbs will appear. With this approach, they will never become a source of despondency and negativity for you.
