“What did you do on Saturday?”
“I woke up late and made some breakfast. Then I took a shower, got dressed and relaxed on the sofa. After that I went for a walk. Then I came home, had lunch and watched a movie on Netflix. I stayed home for the rest of the day and started my homework for next week.”
In the above dialogue there 12 verbs. Nine out of those 12 verbs are irregular, meaning that instead of ending in -ed (stayed, relaxed), they have a completely different form (got, ate, went).
While irregular verbs make up only 3 percent of all English verbs, they are used 70 percent of the time in conversation!
That’s why it’s good to memorize them. I use games to help my students get better at using the past tense, my favorite one being "Go Fish". The goal is to get pairs of present and past verbs. We play the game during a few lessons and soon my students can master 88 irregular verbs and talk about the past without hesitation.
It’s fun and productive!