Conjugating Irregular Verbs

Our grades plummeted when we had to conjugate irregular verbs in Miss Hamrick’s class. There was no way to figure out a scheme or system that would explain the necessary forms of irregular verbs, that is, the past tense and the past participle. For most regular verbs, no problem, just add ‑ed to form both the past tense and the past participle.

But for conjugating irregular verbs, we had to engage in that most dreaded of all academic exercises:

memorization!

We had to memorize the forms of irregular verbs. So Miss Hamrick would set up all sorts of weird chants we’d have to engage in. I can hear her now:

 

And Miss Hamrick and Damron would chant us through the most frequently used irregular verbs. The formula was always the same: State the infinitive form of the verb (drink); then repeat the first-person present tense (drink), then the past tense (drank), and then the past participle (drunk):

 

If we chanted the chant over and over again, we found we could make it through the conjugation of an irregular verb. Let’s fill in the charts for the irregular verb to see. First, we must hear that chant coming from the past millennium:

Miss Hamrick/Damron: See. See, saw, seen.

 

Present Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the present tense of the verb to see:

 

Past Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the past tense of the verb to see:

 

Future Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the future tense of the verb to see:

 

Present-Perfect Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the present-perfect tense of the verb to see:

 

Past-Perfect Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the past-perfect tense of the verb to see:

 

Future-Perfect Tense, Irregular Verb

Here’s the future-perfect tense of the verb to see:

 

Hard Copy

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