yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The truly irregular verbs | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Hello Garans, welcome to the last and strangest part of the irregular verb: the truly irregular. Yes, friends, here I have compiled all the weirdest, all the wooliest, all the eeriest and spookiest forms of verbs that don't otherwise fall into other categories.

So we can't say that they end with a changed "ed," we can't say that they end with an "en," and we can't say that there's a vowel shift. We've already covered those; this is the time for the weird stuff. First up: "ught." Oh, what a strange collection of letters that is to be found in English!

So we take a word like "teach," and in the past tense, it's "taught." Likewise, "catch" becomes "caught," and "bring" becomes "brought." Yes, that's really strange! There are only a couple of words that behave that way.

It's also pretty weird and pretty rare for there to be a vowel shift from the present to the past, and also a "du" sound. So, for example, we take the word "flee," which means to run away, and in the past, it's "fled." Likewise, in the present, we say "say," and in the past, we say "said."

So that "a" becomes "e," and that "e" becomes "e," and it's this weird vowel shift that's also followed up by a "du" sound. There are some words for whom time does not exist. These are verbs for whom the present tense is the same as the past tense. Prepare to have your mind blown!

The past tense of "bet" is "bet," the past tense of "set" is "set," the past tense of "hurt" is "hurt." Yeah, it's weird! Finally, there are some helper verbs or auxiliary verbs called modals that are super weird and have these properties that aren't repeated anywhere else in English.

So present tense "can" becomes past tense "could." I can stand on my head, or I could stand on my head when I was five. "May" becomes "might" in the past, "shall" becomes "should," and "will" becomes "would."

And what's super weird about these "L's" in "could," "should," or "would" is—listen to me saying them—you don't pronounce the "L's." And this is the only place in English where that silent "L" shows up. It's so strange! Ah, I love it!

These are the irregular verbs, and these, in fact, are the most irregular of the irregular. If you can master these, you will be a grammar champion, and I believe in you because you can learn anything.

David out.

More Articles

View All
URGENT: Federal Reserve Cancels Recession, Prices Fall, Massive Pivot Ahead
What’s up you guys, it’s Graham here, and you absolutely have to pay attention to what just happened. As of a few hours ago, the Federal Reserve has decided to once again pause any rate cuts for the foreseeable future. Except this time, investors are pric…
Volume of rectangular pyramids using rectangular prisms | Grade 7 (TX TEKS) | Khan Academy
Now let’s look at a rectangular prism. This is not a cube because we can see that all the sides have different lengths. We have the length, the width, and the height, and those are all different. To find the volume of this, I would still multiply the leng…
Corona Virus (COVID-19) discussion with Bill Gates
Hi everyone! Welcome to the Khan Academy daily homeroom. Sal Khan here — thanks for joining us. We have a pretty exciting show, I guess, today. For those of you all that this is the first time you’re joining, the whole idea is in this time of school closu…
Storytellers Summit Day 1 | National Geographic
Hello everyone. I’m here to tell you a story today. It was the Ramadan of 2017 in Johannesburg, a few months after I started working as a photographer. I pitched the story to an editor, saying I would like to photograph the taraweeh as a contemporary look…
Can You Hear the Reggae in My Photographs? | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
My mom always said that, um, it’s always best to give bitter news with honey. And so if you know anything about Bob and the science behind his music, every song has a one drop rhythm. The one drop rhythm is a simulation of our heartbeat. So, do that’s pho…
Building a Bathhouse in the Arctic | Life Below Zero
When I first started bringing my kids in the woods, I wasn’t sure how they’d take to it, and it seems like it’s in their blood. It makes me feel real proud. Let’s go check out the bath house; we got some work to do ahead of us. Part of having these hot s…