Irregular verbs of the English language cause understandable difficulties for many, to such an extent that they are forced to invent new ways to train their memory. How can one ease the difficult task of remembering irregular verbs and make them not a stumbling block, but just one of the stages of language learning?
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 Firstly, many of them are outdated, and today only about 200 of them are actively used, in addition, many irregular verbs of the English language are changed according to quite understandable and uniform rules.
Irregular verbs in English can be grouped into four groups:
1. The past tense and the second participle are formed in the same way: the vowel in the root changes, and, as a result, the spelling of the ending changes. For instance:
bring - bring - brought;
seek.
2. The form of the past tense and the second participle are different: in the past tense, the word in the root receives a diphthong sound, and when the participle is formed, the ending is also added:
speak - spoke - spoken;
choose - chose - chosen.
3. The easiest group: words that do not change in any way:
cut - cut - cut;
bet (place a bet) - bet - bet.
4. Irregular verbs with a changing consonant at the end:
bend - bent - bent
build - built - built
Try to arrange irregular verbs on four tables yourself. The English language contains many other "samples" that cannot be "put" in these groups, try to create 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 need to be done only once. You don’t have to cram anything. Although in schools when teaching children English is done exactly that. The children are given a list and are invited to simply automatically remember 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 verbs of the English language themselves, but the teacher’s lack of imagination. If you learn the language yourself, you should not become like such a teacher and make a titanic effort on yourself, memorizing boring table rules.
Pay attention to the fact that almost all irregular verbs are among the thousand most used 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 the hundred. For example, the verbs to be (which is not only used in the direct sense, but also as an auxiliary) and to have (similarly - can be used not only as a verb with the meaning "have"). Performing grammar exercises, reading interesting texts, you will memorize their forms without any efforts and, in addition, save time. To "get acquainted" with irregular verbs, you can perform such exercises.
1. Take any interesting text, translate it with the help of an online translator (or take a ready-made text with parallel translation) and underline all the verbs in various forms, write separately the correct and irregular verbs. The latter can be written to the 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 be caught there. Compose stories or sentences with these words. As you know, for successful communication enough to know 3 thousand English words. That is, with the help of this exercise you will not only practice the use of irregular verbs, but also lay a good base 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 his teeth, fed the cat, stepped on the cat’s paw, cooked breakfast, shaved, cut himself,” etc. Translate this story is in English. Or, immediately write in English, looking into the dictionary.
You can come up with many other exercises to refine the grammar or to expand the vocabulary, which will feature irregular verbs of the English language. With this approach, they will never become a source of despondency and negativity for you.