The English language is filled with irregularities and exceptions to grammatical rules.  Many adults have trouble applying grammatical rules, so it comes as no surprise that children learning English have trouble speaking correctly.  One of the most common mistakes among young children is to ignore irregularities and rigidly apply the rules they understand.  This is illustrated in the case of a child remarking "I breaked it" instead of the proper "I broke it."  This mistake is called overregularization.  Overregularization is the mistaken application of a principle of regular change to a word that changes irregularly.  For example, a young child may learn to use broke correctly.  However, after learning that -ed forms the past tense for many verbs, he or she may begin to use this ending for all verbs because it seems correct according to the rule.  Thus, the child is more likely to use the word "breaked" instead of "broke."
 

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