Many English learners find it confusing when verbs do not follow the regular -ed pattern. While it’s easy to remember regular verbs like walk, walked, walked, some verbs change completely in their past tense and past participle forms. These verbs are called irregular verbs, and they follow different patterns.
One interesting group changes the vowel sound in each form. A good example is the verb swim, which becomes swam in the past tense and swum in the past participle. This pattern may look strange at first, but once you understand it, it becomes easier to spot and use correctly.
Let’s begin with a few examples. The verb drink is quite common. In the present tense, we say drink — “I drink water every day.” In the past tense, it changes to drank — “I drank tea last night.” And in the past participle, it becomes drunk — “I have drunk three cups already.” This pattern of changing vowel sounds continues in other verbs, like sing, sang, sung or ring, rang, rung. For example, someone might say, “She sings well,” “She sang at the wedding,” or “She has sung in many competitions.”
Another similar example is the verb begin. In the present, you say, “I begin my work at 8 a.m.” But in the past tense, it becomes began — “I began a new course yesterday.” The past participle is begun — “I have begun reading that book.” These changes may seem random, but they follow a rhythm that your brain starts to recognize with regular use.
There are more verbs that fall under this pattern. The verb sink becomes sank and sunk. You might hear someone say, “The boat sinks quickly,” or “The ship sank last year,” or even “It has sunk to the bottom of the river.” Similarly, blow becomes blew and blown, as in “The wind blew so hard it has blown off the roof.”
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Other examples include grow, grew, grown — “They grow rice,” “They grew up in Lagos,” “They have grown taller.” Then we have know, knew, known — “I know him,” “I knew him in secondary school,” “I have known him for years.” One more is choose, chose, chosen — “We choose leaders,” “They chose a captain,” “She has chosen her career path.”
What all these verbs have in common is that their past tense and past participle are not formed by simply adding -ed. Instead, the vowels change completely. These verbs are strong and unpredictable, often rooted in older forms of English. Learning them takes practice, but they are used so often in daily speech that you can become familiar with them just by paying attention.
In conclusion, while irregular verbs like swim, swam, swum or drink, drank, drunk might seem difficult at first, they follow patterns that are not impossible to learn. The more you use them in sentences, the more natural they feel. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes — just keep practicing. And when you’re unsure, it’s okay to check a dictionary. That’s how we all learn.
