Why Does English Have So Many Irregular Verbs?
Have you ever stopped to wonder why English makes you remember that the past tense of go isn’t goed, but went? Or why sing becomes sang, while walk simply becomes walked? The sheer number of irregular verbs in English can be frustrating for native speakers and language learners alike.
In fact, the English language boasts over 280 irregular verbs, and they account for some of the most frequently used words in our vocabulary: be, have, say, do, come, go, know. Understanding this linguistic oddity requires a fascinating journey back through time, tracing the roots of English from its ancient Germanic origins to the dynamic, global language it is today.
The short answer? English irregular verbs are not random mistakes; they are linguistic fossils, ancient survivors of a grammatical system that has largely been streamlined.
The Root of the Problem: Strong vs. Weak Verbs
To understand why we have so many irregular verbs, we must look to the ancestors of English—Old English and the Germanic languages.
In Old English, verbs were divided into two main categories:
1. Strong Verbs (The Irregulars)
These verbs formed their past tense by changing the internal vowel of the word. This process is called vowel gradation or ablaut. Think of it as a natural shift in sound. These are the irregular verbs we still use today.
| Verb | Internal Vowel Change | Modern Irregular Verb |
| singan (Old English) | sang | Sing → Sang |
| drīfan (Old English) | drāf | Drive → Drove |
| bindan (Old English) | band | Bind → Bound |
2. Weak Verbs (The Regulars)
These verbs formed their past tense by adding a dental suffix (a sound made with the tongue against the teeth or gums). Over time, this suffix became the ubiquitous -ed ending we now use for nearly all regular verbs.
- lōcian (Old English) + -de → lōcode → Looked
- help + -ed → Helped
Key takeaway: The current English system of adding -ed is a simplified, regular system that won’t disappear. The irregular verbs are simply the strong verbs that stubbornly refused to adopt the new, easy suffix.
3 Reasons Why Irregular Verbs Survived the Evolution of English
If the regular -ed system is so much easier, why haven’t the strong verbs all died out? This is a core question for historical linguistics and explains the tenacious grip of these frequently used irregular verbs.
1. High Frequency of Use
The most powerful reason for the survival of an irregular English verb is its high frequency. The more often a word is used in daily conversation, the more ingrained its form becomes in the collective linguistic memory.
- Do, Say, Go, Have, Be: These verbs are used hundreds of times a day.
- The human brain prioritizes efficiency. Using the familiar, ancient form (did, said, went) is faster than calculating the regular form (do-ed, say-ed, go-ed).
- Linguists note that the more a verb is used, the slower it “regularizes.” The oldest and most common verbs are therefore the most irregular ones.
2. The Influence of the Past Participle
Many of the irregular verbs in English have a third form, the past participle (drink/drank/drunk). This three-part distinction acts as an anchor, making the forms more robust against regularization. The difference between the past tense and the past participle is another layer of complexity that keeps these forms distinct.
3. Linguistic Contact and Simplification
The history of English is a story of invasion and linguistic borrowing, which led to grammatical simplification.
- The Viking Invasions: Old English mixed with Old Norse (the language of the Vikings). This contact led to a simplification of the complex Old English inflections (endings for case, gender, etc.).
- The Norman Conquest (1066): The French language dominated the courts and government for centuries. During this period, English was primarily a spoken language, and the complicated rules of the old strong verbs started to break down, favouring the simpler, more stable -ed suffix.
- Irregular verbs that were not used very often simply dropped their vowel-change rule and adopted the easy -ed ending (e.g., help used to be an irregular verb, but now it’s helped). Only the most common ones had the momentum to survive as irregulars.
The Irregularization of Regular Verbs?
Interestingly, while the trend is towards regularization, a few unusual verbs have actually become more irregular over time, adding to the list of tricky English verbs.
A classic example is the past tense of go, which became went. This form didn’t come from go at all!
- The Old English past tense of go was ēode.
- The form went actually came from the Old English verb wendan (meaning to turn or to go), which was a regular verb.
- For reasons lost to history, the past tense of wend became the de-facto past tense of go, a process called suppletion.
This shows that the history of irregular English verbs is not a straight line, but a complex, organic evolution driven by convenience and common usage.
Tips for Mastering the Irregular Verbs
For students grappling with the long list of English irregular verb forms, remember that you are learning a piece of history! Here are a few practical strategies for mastering these linguistic survivors:
- Focus on the Top 100: Since irregularity is linked to frequency, prioritize learning the most common irregular verbs first. These are the ones you’ll use daily.
- Learn by Groups (Vowel Change): Grouping verbs by their ablaut pattern can help with memorization.
- I – A – U: drink/drank/drunk, sing/sang/sung, begin/began/begun
- I – O – I: write/wrote/written, drive/drove/driven, rise/rose/risen
- Use Them in Context: Never learn the three forms in isolation. Always practice them in full sentences to internalize the correct usage, such as “Yesterday, I ate pizza, but I have never eaten sushi.”
The irregular verbs in English are a challenging but fascinating feature of the language. They are a constant reminder that English is a living, breathing product of millennia of human communication, migration, and change. Mastering them gives you access not only to perfect grammar but also to the deep, Germanic heritage of the English language.