Language learning platform Duolingo has released a guide to English regular and irregular verbs, addressing a common challenge for young readers and English language learners. While mastering these grammar patterns is difficult, linguistic research shows that common mistakes are signs of cognitive progress.
What Happened
Duolingo published a reference guide detailing how regular English verbs construct their past-tense forms by adding "-ed," while irregular verbs require memorization. The guide, written by Lindsey Lange-Abramowitz, points out that pronunciation varies, with the "-ed" ending sounding like "t," "d," or "id." It also details spelling changes, such as doubling final consonants in words like "stopped" or changing "y" to "i" in words like "tried." These shifts are important for building early literacy, and they show how young brains acquire language.
The Bigger Picture
When children and English language learners make errors like "goed" or "runned," they are experiencing overregularization. Instead of indicating a developmental delay, research shows this error proves that a child has learned the grammatical rule of adding "-ed" to make a verb past tense. This follows a U-shaped learning curve. Learners start by memorizing words like "went," move to extracting abstract rules, and finally master the exceptions. High-frequency irregular verbs are usually learned first. As children learn the rules of grammar, they temporarily regress before achieving full mastery.
Teaching pronunciation can be challenging because of phonetic differences. Phonics experts note that the suffix is pronounced as a voiceless "t" after voiceless consonant sounds like /p/ or /k/, and as a voiced "d" after voiced consonant sounds and vowels. The suffix only adds an extra syllable when the base verb ends in a /t/ or /d/ sound, such as converting "paint" into "painted." Teaching these phonetic details helps children understand why spelling does not always match spoken sounds.
Educators also encounter regional differences in spelling. While American classrooms treat "learned" as standard, British and Commonwealth English recognizes "learnt." Both forms are grammatically correct and share identical meanings. American English was standardized in America during the 18th and 19th centuries to favor regularized endings, while British English preserved the irregular "-t" endings like "spelt" and "dreamt."
What This Means for Families
Parents do not need to worry when children start saying "breaked" or "felled" instead of using irregular verbs. These mistakes reveal that a child's brain is analyzing and applying linguistic structures, rather than merely repeating what they hear. For educators, recognizing regional spelling variants ensures that students from international backgrounds are not graded down for writing correct Commonwealth spellings like "learnt."
What You Can Do
- Treat mistakes like "runned" as evidence of active rule-learning rather than grammar failures.
- Use the "throat test" to teach pronunciation. Children can place their fingers on their vocal cords to feel for the vibration that dictates whether they use a voiced or voiceless ending.
- Accept both American "-ed" and British "-t" formats to support a diverse classroom environment.