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Dutch irregular verbs

Dutch irregular verbs are mostly “strong” verbs: instead of adding -te/-de they change their vowel in the past and take an -en participle (rijden – reed – gereden, to drive). A small core is fully irregular (zijn – was – geweest, hebben – had – gehad). The lists below give each verb’s English meaning, past singular, past plural and participle, grouped by vowel pattern so that one learned verb helps you predict the others.

Strong vs weak: what changes

A weak verb keeps its vowel and adds an ending: werken → werkte → gewerkt. A strong verb changes its stem vowel instead — this vowel change is called ablaut — and takes an -en participle: rijden → reed → gereden. The good news is that strong verbs fall into families that share the same vowel shift, so once you learn the pattern ij → ee → e you can predict a whole group.

Each entry below gives the infinitive, the past singular, the past plural (usually just a lengthened vowel), and the past participle. Master the three principal parts — infinitive, past, participle — and every tense follows. The past tense itself is covered on the past tense page and the participle-based tense on the perfect tense page.

Why bother with patterns at all, rather than just memorising each verb? Because Dutch strong verbs inherited their vowel changes from a small set of ancient templates that English shares — which is why zingen–zong–gezongen lines up so neatly with "sing–sang–sung", and drinken–dronk–gedronken with "drink–drank–drunk". Spotting these correspondences turns a wall of vocabulary into a handful of recognisable families, and it lets you make an educated guess at a verb you have never seen. The guess is not always right — Dutch has its own irregularities — but it is right often enough to be worth having.

One spelling point runs through every table. When a strong verb has a short vowel in the past singular, that vowel usually lengthens in the plural: ik nam but wij namen, ik brak but wij braken. This is not a separate rule to learn; it falls out of the open-syllable spelling logic described on the vowels page, where a single vowel in an open syllable is automatically long.

Pattern 1: ij → ee → e

Pattern 2: ie / ui → oo → o

Pattern 3: i → o → o

Pattern 4: e → a (sg.) → a (pl.) → o

Pattern 5: e / a → ie → same

The truly irregular verbs

A small group refuses to fit any pattern. These are also the highest-frequency verbs in the language, so despite being irregular they are the first ones you should over-learn. Zijn (to be) and hebben (to have) turn up in every perfect-tense sentence, and the modals appear constantly.

The modal verbs — kunnen, moeten, mogen, willen, zullen — have their own present-tense oddities too; those are set out on the modal verbs page.

Frequency first: what to memorise

Do not try to learn all of these at once. Roughly a dozen strong and irregular verbs account for the vast majority of what you will hear: zijn, hebben, gaan, komen, zien, doen, weten, nemen, geven, staan, plus the modals. Learn those cold, then add the pattern groups a family at a time. Because the patterns are shared, each new verb you meet usually slots into a group you already know.

The most efficient way to drill them is in full sentences rather than as isolated forms, so that the verb comes with a ready-made context. A few worked examples across tenses:

Notice how the participle lands at the end of the clause in every perfect-tense sentence (gegaan, gelezen, gedronken), while the simple-past forms (namen, sprak) sit in the ordinary second-verb position. That placement is a word-order matter, not a verb-form matter, and is set out on the word order page.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most important Dutch irregular verbs?

Start with zijn, hebben, gaan, komen, zien, doen, weten, nemen, geven and staan, plus the modal verbs kunnen, moeten, mogen, willen and zullen. They appear in almost every conversation.

What is a strong verb in Dutch?

A verb that forms its past tense by changing the stem vowel instead of adding -te or -de, and whose participle ends in -en: schrijven – schreef – geschreven. Many have close English relatives, such as zingen – zong – gezongen (sing, sang, sung).

How can I tell whether a Dutch verb is irregular?

From the infinitive alone you cannot be sure, so check a dictionary, which lists the past and participle of every strong verb. Vowel patterns help: most verbs with ij in the stem, such as blijven and kijken, follow ij – ee – e.

What is the past tense of zijn and hebben?

Zijn: was (singular), waren (plural), participle geweest. Hebben: had, hadden, participle gehad.

Is kopen a regular verb?

No. Kopen has an irregular past, kocht/kochten, and participle gekocht, like denken – dacht – gedacht and brengen – bracht – gebracht.