Verbs can be regular or irregular.
Regular verbs form their past tense and past participle by adding -ed.
Walk / walked / walked
Laugh / laughed / laughed
Paint / painted / painted
Wait / waited / waited
Insist / insisted / insisted
Irregular verbs form their past and past participle in other ways.
Sit / sat / sat
Ring / rang / rung
Come / came / come
Cut / cut / cut
There are mainly three types of irregular verbs:
Verbs which have all the three forms alike.
Put / put / put
Read / read / read
Cut / cut / cut
Bet / bet / bet
Hit / hit / hit
Let / let / let
Set / set / set
Spread / spread / spread
Split / split / split
Burst / burst / burst
Verbs which have two of the three forms alike.
Sit / sat / sat
Run / ran / run
Beat / beaten / beaten
Become / became / become
Bend / bent / bent
Bleed / bled / bled
Breed / bred / bred
Bring / brought / brought
Build / built / built
Buy / bought / bought
Come / came / come
Fight / fought / fought
Keep / kept / kept
Say / said / said
Tell / told / told
Verbs which have three different forms:
Break / broke / broken
Write / wrote / written
Ring / rang / rung
Begin / began / begun
Fly / flew / flown
Do / did / done
Forget / forgot / forgotten
Rise / rose / risen
See / saw / seen
A few verbs have two past participle forms. One of these forms end in -en and can only be used like an adjective.
Drink / drunk (regular past participle) / drunken (adjectival past participle) Melt / melted / molten
Prove / proved / proven
Shave / shaved / shaven
Sink / sunk / sunken
Compare:
- He has drunk milk.
- A drunken driver
- He has proved it.
- A proven technique
- The clock has struck five.
- A grief-stricken widow
- He has shaved off his beard.
- A shaven head
- The ship has sunk.
- A sunken ship