by Jacqueline Schaalje

aherrero

Feeling a little irregular?

How are you on your irregular verbs? Remember your catch, caught, caught and sit, sat, sat?

Good.

If you’re not quite sure, keep reading.

First an old article that practises catch caught and other verbs with ght in the past form. I’ve put the exercise online.

Okay, got that?

Verbs with I

Now let’s do another batch (= group) of irregular verbs, with i in the present and a in the past.

They go like this: sit sat.

Verb	Past Simple
sit	sat
sing	sang
ring	rang
drink	drank
begin	began
swim	swam

That’s it. Easy, isn’t it?

This is a very short list, so let’s add the verbs that also have i in the present and a in the past, but have an e at the end of the word. Like: forgive forgave.

Verb	Past Simple
forgive	forgave
give	gave

And that’s it!

So let’s add another group. No, just kidding. This was enough for one lesson.

Now let’s do an exercise first with these verbs.

Quiz

Type the correct past simple form of a verb from the two tables above.

You can do this quiz online here.

1 I __________ for half an hour this morning. The water was perfect!

2 What was on at the opera yesterday? – It was great. They ___________ Rigoletto.

3 When will you bring back the bike that I __________ you Saturday?

4 When her sister got ill she __________ the whole family to announce the bad news.

5 The cat ________ on the mat, waiting for the newspaper.

6 Don’t you think Terry ___________ too much at the party? That was the first time ever that I’d seen him dance the tango with his cat.

7 I said sorry for hurting your feelings and she __________ me.

8 Can I still go into the room? – Yes, but quickly. They ___________ the lecture 5 minutes ago.