A list of 180 irregular verbs is hard to hold. Six shapes are not. Each class is a rule about which of the three forms are the same string of letters, and a computer can check it. The rules are exact, and one near-miss, go, went, gone, shows how exact. What the rules do not do is tell you which verb goes where. That you still learn.
Core ideas
Three ideas.
Take the three forms of a verb. Ask which of them are the same string of letters. That one question gives five of the six classes. The sixth, three different forms, is split in two by a second question: does the last form end in -n?
Know, knew, known has three different forms and the last ends in -n. Go, went, gone also has three different forms, but gone ends in -e. They look the same and the rule puts them in different classes, so the rule says clearly what it cannot cover.
Knowing that a verb is in the class of 21 tells you that all three forms are the same. It does not tell you that put is in that class. You still have to learn which verbs belong where. What you save is the work of learning three forms for each of them.
The material
Here is what each class holds, and what its members have in common beyond the rule.
The last lesson gave a number, about 180 verbs. That is a long list, and a long list is hard to hold. This lesson shows that the list is not as long as it looks, because the verbs come in a few shapes.
Take the three forms: base, past, and the participle. Ask which of them are the same string of letters. There are only a few answers, and each answer is a class.
That is six classes. The verb be stands outside them. It has eight forms (be, am, is, are, being, was, were, been), with two in the past alone, and they are not variations on one base, so no rule about three strings fits it. The lab prints it with was/were in the past column and counts it as outside all six. It is the one verb that is handled by hand.
Look at know, knew, known and at go, went, gone. Both have three different forms. You might expect both in one class. But known ends in -n and gone ends in -e, and that one letter sends them to different classes.
This is a useful thing to see. A rule that says exactly what it covers also says exactly what it does not. Gone and done are not covered by the -n rule. Go and do are two of the commonest verbs in English, and they sit in the class of nine, with undergo.
Six of the nine do something else. Sing, sang, sung. Drink, drank, drunk. Ring, sink, spring and swim do it too. The vowel moves from i to a to u. If you know that shape, you know six verbs.
The lab shows the limit of the rule, and so should this lesson. Begin has the same vowels, but its last form is begun, which ends in -n. The classes follow the last letter. A shape of vowels is a second pattern, laid across the first.
It would be easy to say that six patterns replace 180 verbs. That says too much. A class tells you how many forms to hold for a verb: one for the class of 21, two for the classes of 60, 4 and 1, and three for the 46. It does not tell you which verbs belong in each class, and it does not give you the letters. Bought and brought are in one class, and each is still a form to learn. The classes do tell you where the commonest error with these verbs can happen. Have went, have saw, have came put the past where the participle belongs, and only a verb whose past and participle differ can be got wrong that way: the 46, the four and beat, 51 verbs. For the 60 and the 21 the two forms are one word, and the error cannot happen.
What the classes do give you is a place to put each new verb. You learn a form once, and you know what kind of form it is. That is a smaller job than 180 separate facts, and it is a job you can finish.
Interactive
The sorting questions run on every verb's three written forms
| question | class | verbs | for example |
|---|
| base | past | after have | class |
|---|
Method
Ask the questions in this order and stop at the first yes.
Put, put, put. If yes, it is in the class of 21, and there is nothing else to learn.
Bring, brought, brought. If yes, it is in the largest class, 60 verbs. You learn two forms.
Come, came, come matches the last. Beat, beat, beaten matches the past. These are small classes, four and one.
If the last form ends in -n, as in known, it is in the class of 37. If not, as in sung or gone, it is in the class of 9.
Both of these have three different forms. The only thing that separates them is the last letter.
The class of nine is two small groups under one label. Do, go and undergo end in -e, and the rest follow a pattern of vowels: i in the base, a in the past, u in the participle. Sing, drink, ring, sink, spring and swim all do it.
The rule is not perfect, and the lab shows where. Begin, began, begun has the same vowels, but begun ends in -n, so the rule puts it in the class of 37. The class follows the last letter and not the sound.
You should be able to state each of the six rules, sort a verb by them, say why go does not belong with know even though both have three different forms, and say what a class does not tell you.
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