Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Without understanding the difference between regular and irregular verbs, one cannot hope to achieve much in learning English language as this is one of the basic lessons in learning English. In other words, we can say that regular and irregular verbs are two important terms that are used in English grammar, and they have to be understood with difference. They have to be understood with precision, since they are both different from each other. As we all can see both regular and irregular verbs belong to the verbs under the eight parts of speech. Without knowing whether a verb is regular and irregular you cannot proceed to even simple past tense.
What is a Regular Verb?
A regular verb is a verb whose form does not change much other than the addition of ‘verbal terminations’ at the end. For example the verbs like ‘listen’, ‘look’, ‘love’ are regular verbs, and their past tense forms are ‘listened’, ’looked’, ‘loved’ respectively.
Unlike irregular verbs which have several ways of forming the past and past participle, the regular verbs simply take ‘ed’ as their verbal terminations in the past tense or the simple past tense. Verbs like destroy, deliver, decay, delight, educate, employ, enter, escape, expand and the like just take ‘ed’ in both their past tense form and the past participle form.
What an Irregular Verb?
On the other hand, an irregular verb is a verb whose form changes completely in past and past participle forms. For example, the verbs like ‘go’, ‘run’, ‘eat’, and the like are irregular verbs, and their past tense forms are ‘went’, ‘ran’ and ‘ate’ respectively.
Irregular verbs have different forms in their simple past and past participle tense forms. Let us look at the following examples of irregular forms.
| Verb | Past Tense | Past Participle Tense |
| Abide | Abode | Abided |
| Arise | Arose | Arisen |
| Eat | Ate | Eaten |
| Forbid | Forbade | Forbidden |
| Fly | Flew | Flown |
In some cases, the simple past and past participle forms of the irregular verbs may be the same as in the following examples.
| Verb | Past Tense | Past Participle Tense |
| Cling | Clung | Clung |
| Creep | Crept | Crept |
| Bind | Bound | Bound |
| Bled | Bled | Bled |
| Bring | Brought | Brought |
Some of the irregular verbs have the same form in their present, simple past and past participle forms as in the verbs cut, cost, read.
What is the difference between Regular and Irregular Verbs?
• A regular verb is a verb whose form does not change much other than the addition of ‘verbal terminations’ at the end.
• On the other hand, an irregular verb is a verb whose form changes completely in past and past participle forms.
• There are several types of irregular verbs: verbs which have different form in past and past participle; verbs that have the same form in past and past participle; verbs which have the same form in present, past and past participle.
• The regular verbs simply take ‘ed’ as their verbal terminations in the past tense or the simple past tense.