2. Irregular Verbs Concept In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur.
3. Irregular Verbs The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned systematically, and exceptions listed and carefully noted.
4. Irregular Verbs Thus for example a school French textbook may have a section at the back listing the French irregular verbs in tables. Irregular verbs are often the most commonly used verbs in the language.
5. Example The English verb "pay" sounds regular: "I pay", "I paid", and "I have paid" are all pronounced as expected. But the spelling is irregular and that cannot be perfectly predicted—for example, "pay" and "lay" turn into "paid" and "laid", but "sway" and "stay" turn into "swayed" and "stayed".
