To add to the puzzle, why is the verb "help" regular in English and Swedish but irregular in German and Dutch? I ask these questions confident that no one can give an answer. These verbs seem to have a life of their own.

Certainly, you know you're making progress in a language when you start to master the irregulars. One such in Dutch is the verb zwijgen - to be silent, which has been much used in the news recently to describe those who made matters worse by talking: hij had beter gezwegen - he should have kept silent.

Of course, in some circumstances people impute meaning to silence: wie zwijgt, stemt toe - silence lends consent ("he who stays silent, agrees"). But if someone knows how to wisely say nothing, you would say zij zweeg in alle talen- she kept mum ("she was silent in all languages").

Since the linguistic traffic was from Dutch to English in the past, English speakers can try to tie in Dutch irregular verbs to English ones: winnen - win, won - won, heeft gewonnen - has won. But often the vocalic parts trip you up: drinken and drink are both irregular but drank is dronk and has drunk is heeft gedronken.

You have to be imaginative to link up rijden - ride and reed - rode and gereden - ridden. Some give an insight into how English was pronounced long ago: brengen means bring and the past is bracht - brought. Centuries ago, brought sounded much more like bracht than it does today.

Sometimes it looks as if English has pinched one part of the Dutch verb and used it in its own way: take slapen - sleep; the past is sliep - slept. The verb zeggen seems to dither: it has two forms of the past: hij zei / hij zegde - he said.

As for the most common of verbs komen and gaan, come and go, some surprises await. The past of komen is kwam - came, but what happened to the w in English? More predictably, "he has come" translates as hij is gekomen.

The verb gaan - go- has the past form ging, which is reminiscent of the form of gang in Scots and whose place has been usurped by a past form of wend, went!

Some of these verbs can be grouped, as they change in the same way. So if you know the parts of zwijgen, you can feel at ease with snijden - cut, splijten - split, schrijven - write, blijven - stay, and blijken - appear.

Nu moet ik zwijgen - time to shut up.