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The Pending Subject Newsletter

Every Thursday you will receive:

• Tips to improve your English
• English language content to keep you in touch with the language
• A weekly challenge to keep you progressing
• A quote to inspire your learning

If I had to say the number one thing that Spanish people spend hours studying in English classes with little reward for their dedication, the answer would definitely be irregular verbs. Tables of irregular verbs are printed, homework is given to learn different groups of verbs, exams are taken to test knowledge, but after years of practice the same mistakes are still made. This is not a criticism, just an observation, and when I notice something like this I ask myself: What can I do to change it and allow people to learn (in this case the irregular verbs) better?

In English, when anything happens to something or someone (the subject), we use a verb, or as it is linguistically know- a predicate. John eats/John is eating/John ate, are all examples of this. Therefore, learning verbs, in all of their tenses, and especially the irregular ones, is vital to being a proficient, articulate speaker.

The more verbs you know, the more you will be able to say, and correctly. You will be able to speak in passives and conditionals more easily too, because being able to use these two constructions well also relies on knowledge of the past simple and past participles of verbs.

So, if you have spent hours learning irregular verbs with little success, what can you do to change this?

Here are some tips to help you (finally) learn the irregular verbs...

TIPS

1. Use the language actively: The best way to learn any part of English is to use the language in a practical way. To really learn the irregular verbs, this is vital. Here is what you can do:

1- Keep an irregular verb journal: This is a fantastic and easy way to learn and use 3-5 verbs every day and it takes less than 2 minutes. Every morning, write a couple of sentences about what you did the previous day. For example: I drank a coffee/I bought a sandwich/I rode my bike/I felt tired/I fell asleep...

You could invent the content if your days are similar. You could choose some different irregular verbs and write invented sentences about your dream day...

2- Use The Three S Rule: Use songs/stories/sentences to practise the irregular verbs. Most songs will have at least one irregular verb. Read the lyrics of a song you like and see if you can find one.

You could also invent a short story using 3/5/10 irregular verbs.

Or you could write sentences about your last holiday, your last birthday, your last Christmas, your last meal at a restaurant, or if you don't want to keep an irregular verb journal, you could write about what you did yesterday.

All of these examples will help you to think about the meaning of the verbs and practise using them in real-world situations, therefore it will ingrain them in your memory much better than just passively reading them on a piece of paper.

CONTENT

1. ​Anki: I've talked about Anki before. It's a great tool for testing, which is very important for increasing your skills, not just evaluating them! You can build your own flashcards- so you could write the definition of a verb or an example sentence and try to remember it, or you could write the infinitive and test yourself on the past simple and past participle
2. ​Quizlet: This is another fantastic tool for flashcards, study guides, and testing. You have ready-made material to choose from too...
3. Use AI: Use AI to help you study irregular verbs. You could ask them to make you a daily test; to make worksheets where you fill in the gaps; to make a story containing verbs that you have to identify. The choices are endless...

A CHALLENGE

For one week:

Keep an irregular verb journal like the one described above and see how many verbs you can really learn...

You just need to start...

(A great place to start is the 5-5-5 Progress Plan).

AN INSPIRING QUOTE

"We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing- an actor, a writer- I am a person who does things. I write, I act- and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun." Stephen Fry.

If you really want to learn English, you can also read the How to (finally) learn English book:

​https://benpalmercoach.com/books/​

Out now on Amazon!

Find out more at https://benpalmercoach.com/​

Until next week,

Ben

PS: Keep learning!