"I have strived" vs "I have striven"

word-choice formality writing past-participles variants

In a college application essay, I am trying to write the sentence along the lines of:

I have always strived to achieve my goals.

Should I say strived or striven?

According to this article at grammarist.com, striven is correct but strived is gaining popularity. Which is better in a formal essay?


Solution 1:

'I have always striven to reach my goals', is correct in my opinion. I have heard 'strived' used and think that is part of the trend to regularize all the verb endings in English, forgetting the origins of the language. That would make it much easier for non-English speakers to learn. 'have striven' is pluperfect tense, whereas 'strove' is past tense.

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