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Past tense of “bring”
🎒 To carry something with you to a place.
Number 20 of 175 by frequency — unavoidable in ordinary English, and the past and the participle are both brought. If you learn twenty irregular verbs, this is one of them.
Mistakes people make with “bring”
Not “bringed” or “brang” or “brung”. Bring does not take -ed — the past simple is brought, however regular it feels to add the ending.
Do not confuse it with…
Bring moves something towards the speaker, take moves it away. Bring it here, take it there.
Phrases you will actually hear
These are worth learning whole. A verb sticks far better inside a phrase somebody would really say than on its own in a table.
Unrecognisable base, predictable ending
Bring and brought barely look related, and that is normal for this group. What holds it together is the ending: -ought or -aught, shared by think, buy, bring, catch, teach, seek and fight.
The good news is that the past and the participle are identical — brought covers both — so there is one strange word to learn rather than two. The gh is silent; it is a fossil from a sound English lost centuries ago.
- Past simple: He brought flowers to the party last night.
- Past participle: She has brought good news.
The same pattern — the -ought gang — runs through 8 verbs:
Practise it
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