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Free practice by Slay School

English irregular verbs: list with audio and quiz

All three forms of 144 verbs with IPA transcription. Tap a word to hear how it sounds, then test yourself in the quiz: 10 verbs per round, and your mistakes are saved for review.

  • 144 verbs
  • Top 50 most common
  • UK / US audio
  • No sign-up
Go to the list

Quiz

Test yourself

A round is 10 verbs. The verbs you get wrong are saved, so you can practise exactly those.

Which verbs
How to answer

Irregular verbs list

Infinitive (V1), Past Simple (V2) and Past Participle (V3). Search by any form, and tap a word or the speaker icon to hear the pronunciation.

Accent
Which verbs to show

Showing 144 of 144

Irregular verbs list
Infinitive (V1)Past Simple (V2)Past Participle (V3)Accent
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A slash separates two correct forms: British first (learnt), then American (learned). Transcription is British.

How to learn irregular verbs faster

Don’t learn the list alphabetically: irregular verbs fall into four groups depending on which forms are the same. Learn them group by group and you remember a few patterns instead of a long list.

  • cut – cut – cut

    All three forms are the same

    The easiest group: learn one form and you know all three. There is just one trap: read is [riːd], but in V2 and V3 it is [red].

    • cut – cut – cut
    • put – put – put
    • read – read – read
    • bet – bet – bet

    Verbs in the list: 18Show in the list

  • buy – bought – bought

    V2 and V3 are the same

    The biggest group. Often only the vowel changes (feel – felt, keep – kept), or the ending becomes -ought / -aught (bring – brought, teach – taught).

    • bring – brought – brought
    • build – built – built
    • buy – bought – bought
    • catch – caught – caught

    Verbs in the list: 70Show in the list

  • come – came – come

    V3 is the same as V1

    Just a few verbs: come, become, overcome and run. One sentence is enough to remember them: I have come, run and become a winner.

    • become – became – become
    • come – came – come
    • run – ran – run
    • overcome – overcame – overcome

    Verbs in the list: 4Show in the list

  • go – went – gone

    All three forms are different

    The hardest group, but it has a rhythm too: begin – began – begun, drink – drank – drunk, sing – sang – sung (i – a – u); write – wrote – written, drive – drove – driven.

    • be – was – been
    • begin – began – begun
    • break – broke – broken
    • do – did – done

    Verbs in the list: 52Show in the list

When to use each form

Only V2 and V3 make a verb irregular: in regular verbs both of them end in -ed.

  1. Infinitive: the base form

    The present and future, after modal verbs, and in negatives and questions with did.

    • I go to the gym every day.

      Present Simple

    • Did you see that film?

      A question with did

  2. Past Simple

    Only in positive Past Simple sentences: something that happened and finished in the past.

    • We went to London last summer.

      Past Simple

    • She bought a new phone.

      Past Simple

  3. Past Participle

    Perfect tenses (have / has / had + V3) and the passive voice (be + V3).

    • I have never seen the sea.

      Present Perfect

    • The book was written in 1925.

      Passive voice

Tips from our teachers

  • Top 50 first

    Fifty verbs (be, have, go, get, make…) make up most of the irregular forms in everyday speech. The rest can wait.

  • Out loud, with audio

    Listen and repeat the three forms in one rhythm: “go – went – gone”. That way you learn the pronunciation together with the spelling.

  • 10 a day

    A short round every day beats an hour once a week. The quiz collects your mistakes into a separate set.

  • In sentences

    Make two sentences with every new verb: about yesterday (V2) and about your experience (have + V3).

Test yourself

FAQ

Didn’t find your answer? Send us a request — we’ll tell you everything.

How many irregular verbs are there in English?

There are over 200, but most of them are rare or literary. About 100–150 are enough for everyday English; our list has the 144 you need most, and 50 of them are marked as the most common.

Which irregular verbs should I learn first?

Start with the top 50: be, have, do, go, get, make, say, see, take, come, know, think and so on. They come up in every conversation and make up most of the irregular forms in everyday speech.

What are V1, V2 and V3?

These are the three forms of a verb: V1 is the infinitive (go), V2 is the Past Simple (went), V3 is the Past Participle used in perfect tenses and the passive (gone). In regular verbs V2 and V3 are the same and end in -ed.

Which is correct: learnt or learned?

Both are correct. Learnt, dreamt and burnt are more common in British English; learned, dreamed and burned in American English (and increasingly in British English too). The quiz accepts both.

How does the audio work?

The words are read by your browser’s built-in speech synthesis, so there is nothing to install. You can choose a British or American accent. If there is no sound, check the volume or open the page in Chrome, Safari or Edge.

Can I print the list?

Yes: tap “Print the list” above the table. Only the table is printed: all the verbs, or just the ones filtered right now (for example, the top 50).

What’s next

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