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English Grammar Guidebook

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Irregular Simple Past Forms

English has many irregular verbs that have special forms in the past tense. Here is a list of some of the more important verbs:

Present	Simple Past	Past Participle
be	was	been
become	became	become
begin	began	begun
blow	blew	blown
break	broke	broken
bring	brought	brought
buy	bought	bought
catch	caught	caught
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
cost	cost	cost
cut	cut	cut
dig	dug	dug
do	did	done
draw	drew	drawn
drink	drank	drunk
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
fall	fell	fallen
feel	felt	felt
find	found	found
fly	flew	flown
forget	forgot	forgotten
get	got	gotten
give	gave	given
have	had	had
know	knew	known
let	let	let
lie	lay	lain
make	made	made
pay	paid	paid
put	put	put
read	read	read
run	ran	run
say	said	said
sell	sold	sold
sit	sat	sat
speak	spoke	spoken
spend	spent	spent
stand	stood	stood
teach	taught	taught
tell	told	told
take	took	taken
write	wrote	written

Examples of Irregular Simple Past Forms

Your Aunt Stephanie was a fine lady. She certainly thought a lot of you.
As you may know, she had no direct descendants, so she wanted to leave you the bulk of her estate.