動詞三態: Irregular Verbs 完整清單與 8 大規則 (2026) | 英文不規則動詞表

Roughly 70% of the most frequently used verbs in English are irregular. That single fact explains why irregular verbs cause more grammar errors for Taiwan learners than any other topic — the verbs you reach for most often are exactly the ones that refuse to follow the rules. If you have ever written “I goed to Taipei” or “She has eated lunch,” you already know the pain. The good news: irregular verbs are not random. They fall into a handful of sound families, and once you hear the pattern, memorizing them stops feeling like brute force.

This guide gives you the three forms of every common verb (動詞三態: 原形、過去式、過去分詞), a categorized list you can actually memorize, the rules behind the patterns, and the specific mistakes Taiwanese speakers make most. Bookmark the table — it is the part you will come back to.

What Are Irregular Verbs? （什麼是不規則動詞？）

A regular verb builds its past tense and past participle by adding -ed: walk → walked → walked, play → played → played. Simple and predictable. An irregular verb ignores that rule and changes its stem instead. 說話 becomes spoke 和 spoken; write becomes wrote 和 written. There is no -ed to lean on, which is why you have to learn each one as a small piece of vocabulary rather than a formula.

Chinese does not conjugate verbs for tense at all — 「我昨天去」and「我明天去」use the same 「去」. So the whole idea of a verb physically changing shape is foreign, not just the specific forms. That is the real reason irregular verbs feel harder in Taiwan than they do for, say, a German learner whose own language is full of them.

Writing each verb by hand — base, past, participle — locks the pattern in faster than reading alone.

The Three Forms of Every Verb （動詞三態）

Every English verb has three principal forms, and Taiwanese textbooks call this 動詞三態. Get comfortable with the names, because grammar explanations everywhere assume you know them:

• Base form （原形 V1） — the dictionary form: eat, go, take. Used for the present tense and after 到.
• Past simple （過去式 V2） — a finished past action: ate, went, took. Used on its own.
• Past participle （過去分詞 V3） — used with have/has/had for perfect tenses and with be for the passive: eaten, gone, taken.

Regular verbs make V2 and V3 identical (both -ed). Irregular verbs are the interesting ones because V2 and V3 might be the same, might be different, or might match the base form entirely. That variation is the whole game, and it is why a flat A-to-Z list is the worst way to study them.

The Complete Irregular Verbs List by Pattern （不規則動詞表）

Here is the list, grouped by how the three forms relate to each other. Learning them in these blocks — not alphabetically — is the single biggest time-saver. Say each row out loud; the rhyme inside each group does most of the memory work for you.

Group 1: All Three Forms the Same （三態同形）

The easiest group. Nothing changes, so context and time words do all the work.

Note read: the spelling never changes, but the past forms are pronounced /rɛd/, like “red.” That pronunciation shift trips up almost everyone at first.

Group 2: Past and Participle Are the Same （過去式＝過去分詞）

The largest and most useful group. Learn V2 and you already know V3.

A good dictionary lists all three forms next to each entry — check them when a verb feels unfamiliar.

Group 3: All Three Forms Different （三態不同形）

The classic irregular verbs. These are worth extra repetition because they show up constantly and there is no shortcut — you simply have to know all three.

Why Irregular Verbs Break the Rules （為什麼會有不規則變化）

These verbs are not broken — they are old. Most irregular verbs come from Old English and follow an ancient system called “strong verbs,” where the vowel inside the word changed to signal tense. That is the i → a → u music you hear in sing → sang → sung, ring → rang → rung, ， 和 drink → drank → drunk. The -ed ending is actually the newer, “weaker” invention, and over centuries English slowly converted most verbs to it. The survivors are simply the words used so often that people never let them change.

That history is genuinely useful, not just trivia. When you notice that begin/began/begun 和 swim/swam/swum move the same way, you can file them together and cut your memory load. Patterns beat lists every time.

Grouping verbs by vowel sound on the board makes the “strong verb” pattern visible.

8 Patterns to Learn Irregular Verbs Faster （8 個記憶規則）

You will never find one rule that covers all irregular verbs. But these eight sound patterns cover the majority, and spotting them turns memorization into recognition.

1. -ought / -aught endings: buy→bought, think→thought, catch→caught, teach→taught. A whole cluster shares this sound.
2. i → a → u: sing→sang→sung, begin→began→begun, swim→swam→swum, ring→rang→rung.
3. i → o → o: win→won→won, stick→stuck→stuck (V2=V3).
4. -ow → -ew → -own: grow→grew→grown, know→knew→known, throw→threw→thrown, blow→blew→blown.
5. -eak/-ake → -oke/-ook → -oken/-aken: speak→spoke→spoken, take→took→taken, break→broke→broken.
6. -d → -t: build→built, send→sent, spend→spent, bend→bent.
7. No change at all: cut, put, hit, let, cost, hurt — short words ending in t 或者 d.
8. -ell → -old: tell→told, sell→sold. A tiny pair, but two very common verbs.

Learn the eight buckets and the roughly 100 everyday irregular verbs stop looking like 100 separate problems.

Common Mistakes Taiwan Learners Make （台灣學生常犯的錯誤）

After twenty years in Taiwanese classrooms, the same handful of errors comes up again and again. Fix these four and your spoken English jumps a level immediately.

Study partners catch each other’s verb-form slips faster than silent solo review.

Adding -ed anyway. “我 buyed a coffee” or “She teached me.” The instinct to reach for -ed is strong precisely because irregular verbs are the exception. There is no fix except repetition until the correct form feels automatic.

Confusing V2 and V3. Saying “I have 去” instead of “I have gone,” or “He has ate” instead of “eaten.” Remember: anything after have/has/had must be the past participle (V3), never the past simple. This is exactly where the present perfect tense lives or dies.

The read/read pronunciation trap. “Yesterday I read the news” is spelled the same but said /rɛd/. Learners who studied English mostly through text often never hear this shift.

Forgetting the participle in the passive. “The window was break” should be “was broken.” The passive voice always needs V3, and irregular participles are where it goes wrong.

How to Memorize Irregular Verbs That Actually Stick （如何有效記憶）

Copying a list ten times does almost nothing — you are training your hand, not your memory. Three methods work far better:

Study in sound groups, then out loud. Drill “sing sang sung, ring rang rung, drink drank drunk” as a chant. The rhythm carries the forms. This is why the pattern tables above are grouped the way they are.

Use spaced repetition. Put each verb’s three forms on one flashcard and review with an app like Anki that shows you a card right before you would forget it. Twenty minutes a day for two weeks beats a weekend of cramming. If you want the full system, our guide on building tenses pairs naturally with verb-form drills.

Learn them inside real sentences. “我 lost my keys” sticks better than the bare word lost, because your brain stores the grammar and the meaning together. Read a lot, notice past forms in context, and copy the ones you keep tripping on into a personal list.

A personal list of the verbs you personally get wrong beats any generic 200-verb chart.

Watch: Irregular Verbs Explained （影片教學）

This short lesson walks through the difference between regular and irregular verbs and demonstrates the pronunciation of the trickier forms — useful if you learn better by ear.

Extensive reading exposes you to past forms hundreds of times without any drilling.

Frequently Asked Questions （常見問題）

How many irregular verbs are there in English?
Reference lists count around 200, but frequency does the sorting for you. About 100 cover nearly everything you read or say, and the top 25 or so (be, have, do, go, get, make, say, take) appear in almost every conversation. Start there.

Is “read” the same as “read”?
Spelling yes, sound no. The base form is /riːd/ (“reed”) and both past forms are /rɛd/ (“red”). It is the most common pronunciation trap in the whole list.

Are “learned” and “learnt” both correct?
Yes. Some verbs sit between regular and irregular: learn, burn, dream, spell accept both -ed 和 -t. American English prefers learned; British English often uses learnt. Either is fine — just be consistent.

What is the difference between past simple and past participle?
The past simple (V2) stands alone: “I saw it.” The past participle (V3) needs a helper — have/has/had for perfect tenses or be for the passive: “I have seen it,” “It was seen.” For regular verbs they look identical; for irregular verbs they often differ, which is the whole reason this topic matters.

Start With the 100 That Matter （從最常用的開始）

Do not try to swallow a 200-verb chart in one sitting — that is the fastest way to quit. Pick the 25 verbs you actually use every day, drill them in sound groups until the forms come without thinking, then add the next 25. Within a month the correct past form will arrive automatically, and “I goed” will sound as wrong to your ear as it does to a native speaker’s. Keep this table open, add the verbs you personally trip on, and revisit our present perfect guide once the participles feel solid — that is where they pay off.

Sources （資料來源）

1. Cambridge Dictionary — Irregular Verbs — authoritative reference for verb forms and usage.
2. British Council — Past Tense Grammar Reference — explanations of past simple and past participle use.
3. EF English Live — Irregular Verbs List — extended list of common irregular verbs.