Eva Grabowski and Dieter Mindt

 

The first 100 out of 157 verbs

For learners of English, irregular verbs represent one of the most difficult aspects of the language. They are normally presented in the form of alphabetical lists. Alphabetical lists do not, however, take into account the actual occurrence of these verbs.

 

In the following learning list the verbs are ranked in their order of frequency in authentic English. Two machine-readable standard corpora of English, the BROWN corpus of American English and the Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen corpus of British English were selected to form the basis of this learning list.

 

The new list ensures that the learner has encountered the most important verbs, no matter when the learning process ends. For the author of teaching materials and the teacher, the new list supplies an empirical basis for the selection and gradation of irregular verbs in language courses.

References

Grabowski, Eva und Dieter Mindt. "Die unregelmäßigen Verben des Englischen: eine Lernliste auf empirischer Grundlage." Die Neueren Sprachen 93 (1994) 4, 334-353.

Grabowski, Eva and Dieter Mindt. "A corpus-based learning list of irregular verbs in English." ICAME Journal 19 (1995), 5-22.

Grabowski, Eva. "Unregelmäßige Verben im authentischen Englisch und im Englischunterricht." Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts 42 (1995) 2, 147-157.

 

Learning list

The columns in the learning list give the following information:

 

Column 1: Rank position in learning list.

Column 2: Relative frequency (percentage) of learning list.

Column 3: Cumulative frequency (percentage) of learning list.

For every position the column indicates the percentage of verb forms that has been covered if the learner started at the beginning and has proceeded in the order of the learning list. If learning is discontinued after position 5 (COME) the learner has learned 27.3% of all irregular forms with five verbs (SAY, MAKE, GO, TAKE, COM E). If learning is discontinued after LEAVE the first 15 verbs have covered 56% of all irregular forms.

Column 4: Lemma/Base form.

Column 5: Past tense form.

Column 6: Past participle form.

 

Rank postion in learning list	Relative frequency (percentage)of Learning list	Cumulative frequency (percentage)of learning list	Lemma/Base form	Past tense form	Past participle form
1	7.5	7.5	say	said	said
2	6.2	13.7	make	made	made
3	5.1	18.8	go	went	gone
4	4.4	23.2	take	took	taken
5	4.1	27.3	come	came	come
6	4.1	31.4	see	saw	seen
7	4.0	35.4	know	knew	known
8	3.7	39.2	get	got	got
9	3.5	42.7	give	gave	given
10	2.9	45.6	find	found	found
11	2.8	48.4	think	thought	thought
12	2.1	50.5	tell	told	told
13	1.9	52.4	become	became	become
14	1.8	54.2	show	showed	shown
15	1.8	56.0	leave	left	left
16	1.7	57.7	feel	felt	felt
17	1.4	59.2	put	put	put
18	1.4	60.6	bring	brought	brought
19	1.4	62.0	begin	began	begun
20	1.4	63.3	keep	kept	kept
21	1.4	64.7	hold	held	held
22	1.4	66.0	write	wrote	written
23	1.2	67.3	stand	stood	stood
24	1.1	68.4	hear	heard	heard
25	1.1	69.4	let	let	let
26	1.0	70.5	mean	meant	meant
27	1.0	71.5	set	set	set
28	1.0	72.5	meet	met	met
29	1.0	73.5	run	ran	run
30	0.9	74.4	pay	paid	paid
31	0.8	75.2	sit	sat	sat
32	0.8	76.0	speak	spoke	spoken
33	0.8	76.8	lie	lay	lain
34	0.8	77.6	lead	led	led
35	0.7	78.3	read	read	read
36	0.7	79.0	grow	grew	grown
37	0.7	79.7	lose	lost	lost
38	0.7	80.4	fall	fell	fallen
39	0.7	81.1	send	sent	sent
40	0.6	81.7	build	built	built
41	0.6	82.3	understand	understood	understood
42	0.6	83.0	draw	drew	drawn
43	0.6	83.5	break	broke	broken
44	0.6	84.1	spend	spent	spent
45	0.6	84.6	cut	cut	cut
46	0.5	85.2	rise	rose	risen
47	0.5	85.7	drive	drove	driven
48	0.5	86.2	buy	bought	bought
49	0.4	86.6	wear	wore	worn
50	0.4	87.0	choose	chose	chosen
51	0.4	87.4	seek	sought	sought
52	0.4	87.9	throw	threw	thrown
53	0.4	88.2	catch	caught	caught
54	0.4	88.6	deal	dealt	dealt
55	0.4	89.0	win	won	won
56	0.4	89.4	forget	forgot	forgotten
57	0.4	89.7	lay	laid	laid
58	0.3	90.1	sell	sold	sold
59	0.3	90.4	fight	fought	fought
60	0.3	90.7	bear	bore	borne
61	0.3	91.1	teach	taught	taught
62	0.3	91.4	eat	ate	eaten
63	0.3	91.6	sing	sang	sung
64	0.3	91.9	strike	struck	struck
65	0.3	92.1	hang	hung	hung
66	0.3	92.4	shake	shook	shaken
67	0.2	92.6	ride	rode	ridden
68	0.2	92.9	feed	fed	fed
69	0.2	93.1	shoot	shot	shot
70	0.2	93.4	drink	drank	drunk
71	0.2	93.6	hit	hit	hit
72	0.2	93.8	arise	arose	arisen
73	0.2	94.1	fly	flew	flown
74	0.2	94.3	spread	spread	spread
75	0.2	94.5	sleep	slept	slept
76	0.2	94.7	cost	cost	cost
77	0.2	94.9	beat	beat	beaten
78	0.2	95.1	light	lit	lit
79	0.2	95.2	bind	bound	bound
80	0.2	95.4	cast	cast	cast
81	0.2	95.6	hide	hid	hidden
82	0.2	95.7	swing	swung	swung
83	0.2	95.9	blow	blew	blown
84	0.1	96.0	swim	swam	swum
85	0.1	96.2	bend	bent	bent
86	0.1	96.3	wake	woke	woken
87	0.1	96.4	stick	stuck	stuck
88	0.1	96.6	sweep	swept	swept
89	0.1	96.7	undertake	undertook	undertaken
90	0.1	96.8	shut	shut	shut
91	0.1	96.9	steal	stole	stolen
92	0.1	97.0	tear	tore	torn
93	0.1	97.1	hurt	hurt	hurt
94	0.1	97.2	ring	rang	rung
95	0.1	97.3	lend	lent	lent
96	0.1	97.4	sink	sank	sunk
97	0.1	97.5	overcome	overcame	overcome
98	0.1	97.6	freeze	froze	frozen
99	0.1	97.7	shine	shone	shone
100	0.1	97.8	withdraw	withdrew	withdrawn