Past-Tense Verbs That Are Pretty Weird!

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

The past tense of hurt is . . . hurt!

• How crazy is that?

Hurt is just one of the past tense verbs that do not follow the usual rules. Knowing these words will help your spelling, talking, and understanding when reading.

Before looking at more irregular verbs, review a few important ideas.

What Is a Verb?

A verb is a word that shows an action.

Read these sentences:

• The dog runs.

• Mia jumps.

• I eat an apple.

The words runs, jumps, and eat are verbs because they tell what someone or something does.

Some verbs can also describe a state or condition, such as is, are, was, and were.

What Is Past Tense?

The tense of a verb tells when an action happens.

Past tense means the action already happened.

Read these examples:

• Today, I walk to school.

• Yesterday, I walked to school.

The word walked tells you the action happened in the past.

Many verbs form the past tense by adding -ed.

• jump becomes jumped

• help becomes helped

• work becomes worked

For example:

I worked in the school cafeteria last year.

Words such as yesterday, last night, and last week can also give you clues that a sentence is about the past.

What Does Irregular Mean?

Irregular means something does not follow the usual pattern.

Most past-tense verbs add -ed, but irregular verbs do something different. Some change their spelling completely.

• run becomes ran

• eat becomes ate

• go becomes went

• see becomes saw

Other irregular verbs do not change at all.

• hurt stays hurt

• cut stays cut

• put stays put

You would not say, “I hurted my knee.” You would say, “I hurt my knee.”

Now that you know the important concepts, look at these common examples of irregular past-tense verbs below.

These are just a few irregular verbs.

There are many more examples, and you will discover some of them in this lesson!

• Can you think of any irregular verbs on your own?

The tricky part about irregular verbs is that they do not follow one set rule. You need to practice and remember them.

The good news is that the more often you read, hear, and use them, the easier they become to remember.

Do just that in the Got It? section!