English irregular verbs list

There is no single number: it depends on how many rare and old-fashioned verbs you count, and whether you include verbs built from others, like understand or overcome. The Retite list has 317, every irregular verb with an entry in its dictionary.

They are short names for the three forms of a verb. V1 is the base form (go), V2 the past simple (went) and V3 the past participle (gone). The table above gives all three for every irregular verb.

The past simple is the past on its own: I went home. The past participle follows have in the perfect tenses and be in the passive: I have gone, it was written.

Verbs like cut, put, set, let, hit, cost and hurt keep one form for all three: I cut, I cut it yesterday, I have cut it. The group “All three forms the same” above lists every one of them, with the verbs built from them, like upset and broadcast.

Both. Learned is used everywhere English is spoken, and learnt is common in British English; dreamt and dreamed, spelt and spelled work the same way. The list shows one form for each verb, the one Retite teaches, and its search finds both.

Learn them in groups that change the same way — sing, sang, sung like drink, drank, drunk — and learn each verb as one pattern rather than three separate words. Recall the forms yourself instead of rereading a table. Spaced repetition then brings each verb back just before you would forget it. That is how the irregular verbs trainer in Retite works.