Many verbs in English have an irregular past tense. This lesson introduces some of the more common ones.
The English verb be is very irregular in both the present and past tense. The following table shows the past tense of the verb be.
I was | |
he was | |
she was | |
it was | |
we were | |
you were | |
they were |
I was at the store. | |
He was tired. | |
They were happy. | |
We were at home. | |
Were they at the beach? | |
They were not at the beach. | |
The car was dirty. | |
The windows were dirty. |
A lot of other very common English verbs also have an irregular past tense. The following table shows the past tense for some very common English verbs. Unlike for the verb be, there is only one form of the past tense for these verbs.
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Verb | Past Tense | |
---|---|---|
bring | brought | |
buy | bought | |
choose | chose | |
do | did | |
drink | drank | |
eat | ate | |
find | found | |
go | went | |
get | got | |
give | gave | |
have | had | |
hold | held | |
make | made | |
run | ran | |
sit | sat | |
say | said | |
stand | stood | |
take | took | |
tell | told | |
think | thought |
We brought some cookies. | |
She drank the coffee. | |
I found the keys. | |
The cat sat by the window. | |
I thought you said something. |