It has been my experience of 30 years teaching them that it's easiest to learn them in groups. Because they are in groups. Just like the World Cup. The group of no change verbs, the group of "i" in the present, "a" in the simple past, and "u" in the participle. The group of "___ought" for the simple past and the participle. I think that learning them a, b, c, according to the alphabet isn't as exciting. You do find them exciting like me, don't you? The most important thing to remember is don't bother learning the other 300 irregular verbs we have. Don't even think about them. We never use them because they are too old. So just learn the 85 or so you find in the good grammar books available now. Best of all, English is a forgiving tongue; if you make a mistake people will understand you OK, and if you get it right people will know you studied hard and had a good teacher like me.

It might be helpful to learn the more common irregular verbs first. The following links will help you to learn and remember many of the important and often used irregular verbs. Then, most of the other verbs that are not in this group would be the regular verbs:) (please - no flames from those of you who are actually qualified to answer these types of questions:) This is the way young students learned (or learnt) the irregular verbs in school many years ago - By Repetition. Irregular Verbs – Part 1 Listen and Repeat http://www.manythings.org/b/e/2315 Irregular Verbs – Part 2 Listen and Repeat http://www.manythings.org/b/e/2356 Irregular Verbs – Part 3 Listen and Repeat http://www.manythings.org/b/e/2368 Irregular Verbs – Part 4 Listen and Repeat http://www.manythings.org/b/e/2373 Good luck...

"and had a good teacher like me" he he )) and very modest as well )) as for me, I do not believe the new methods very much - studied them according to the alphabet rote-learning is difficult, but once you study them - you will never forget them (however, you should use them sometimes to have automatism, of course)