Irregular past spelling patterns

The idea

Some change a vowel: sing becomes sang, and drive becomes drove. Others stay the same: put and cut have unchanged past forms. Learn each verb’s forms; these patterns do not apply to every verb.

Examples

• Mina sang at the community festival yesterday.
• We drank tea after the long walk.
• The children swam in the lake last summer.
• My neighbour drove us to the station.
• I put the keys on the kitchen table this morning.
• The baker cut the bread before lunch.

Watch out

Do not add -ed to an unchanged form: the past of put is put, not putted.

Try it yourself

1. Choose the correct past form. Last night, Jo ___ a song for us. (sing / sang)

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   sang

   sang tells us Jo performed the song last night.

2. Choose the correct past form. Yesterday, we ___ the bags by the door. (put / putted)

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   put

   put stays the same when the action happened yesterday.

3. Choose the correct past form. On Monday, Ali ___ to work. (drive / drove)

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   drove

   drove is the past form used for Ali’s journey on Monday.

Use it today

Choose the past form in each sentence, then write your own sentence about yesterday.