Irregular past tense

Brijbox English · Learn the idea

Rule: For these verbs, learn the past form instead of adding -ed.

Pattern: Use the past partner: go → went; eat → ate; see → saw.

To tell what already happened, we often use a past-tense verb.

Regular verbs use an -ed ending: play → played, like → liked. Irregular verbs have forms we need to learn: go → went.

Learn each pair in a sentence. Some stay the same: today I cut paper; yesterday I cut paper.

Look at these examples

go → went; eat → ate

Yesterday, we went to the lake and ate our lunch.

see → saw; have → had

We saw a duck. It had a bright feather.

write → wrote; cut → cut

I wrote a note and cut a paper star.

Watch out

Not every past verb adds -ed. Cut stays cut; seen needs a helping verb in forms such as have seen.

Your turn

Say or write your answers. An adult can read the questions aloud.

1. Yesterday, we ___ to the pool.

Choose the past form of go. goed / go / went

2. This morning, I ___ my breakfast before school.

Choose the past form of eat. ate / eated / eat

3. Yesterday, Mila ___ a rainbow.

Choose the past form of see. seen / saw / seed

4. Last night, we ___ soup for dinner.

Choose the past form of have. have / haved / had

5. Yesterday, I ___ a postcard.

Choose the past form of write. wrote / written / writed

6. Yesterday, I ___ a paper shape.

Choose the past form of cut. cutted / cut / cuts

Sentence workshop

Try each task before looking at the grown-up guide. Say your answer or write on paper.

Tell it as yesterday’s story.

Every day, we go to the park and eat lunch.

Begin with Yesterday and change both verbs.

Explain: What are the past partners of go and eat?

Repair the past forms.

Yesterday, I seen a bird and writed a note.

Repair both verbs. Keep this as a simple past sentence.

Explain: Which words fit without a helping verb?

Make your own sentences

Tell a tiny story about yesterday. Write three sentences about an imaginary day out. Use at least three of these past forms: went, ate, saw, had, wrote, cut.

Grown-up guide

Begin with affirmative simple past sentences. Was/were, questions, negatives with did, and more irregular verbs can follow in later lessons. Do not mark a child’s dialect as a personal fault; explain that these are the standard written forms being practised.

Practice answers

1. went. We went to the pool. Went is the past form of go.

2. ate. I ate my breakfast. Ate tells us the eating already happened.

3. saw. Mila saw a rainbow. Seen needs a helping verb in forms such as has seen; it does not fit this sentence on its own.

4. had. We had soup for dinner. Have changes to had.

5. wrote. I wrote a postcard. Written is used with a helping verb, as in have written.

6. cut. I cut a paper shape. Cut can be present or past; the sentence helps tell us the time.

Sentence workshop examples

Yesterday, we went to the park and ate lunch. Go changes to went and eat changes to ate. Neither forms its past by adding ed.

Yesterday, I saw a bird and wrote a note. Use saw and wrote in this simple past sentence. Seen and written belong with helping verbs such as have or had.

Check the child’s own writing

One possible example: Yesterday, we went to a castle. We saw a huge door. We ate our lunch beside it.

Try another day

Tell someone about yesterday using went, saw and had, without looking at the examples.

These are starter lessons. Use the child’s explanation and independent sentences to choose what to revisit. Finishing a page is not a mastery result.