The Big Yellow Book of German Verbs (2024)

FAQs

How many verb forms does German have? ›

There are six tenses in German: the present and past are conjugated, and there are four compound tenses. There are two categories of verbs in German: weak and strong.

The German present tense is considered simple, since there's only one verb involved. You'll see a few common patterns in present-tense verbs, especially in the regular ones. The ich form will generally end in an -e, the du form with an -st, and the er/sie/es and ihr forms with a -t.

Three important irregular German auxiliary verbs are: haben (to have), sein (to be), and werden (to become). Six common irregular German modal verbs are listed below: Dürfen — To be allowed.

The present tense is used: to say what you are doing right now – ich arbeite – I am working. to say what you do regularly or always – ich schwimme jede Woche – I swim every week. to describe something ongoing – ich spiele Fußball – I play football (this implies it is one of your hobbies)

The best way to start learning German verb conjugation is to begin with regular verbs in the present tense. Fortunately for English speakers, German verb conjugation is not as complicated as it appears at first glance and 90% of German verbs are regular and can be conjugated using one of four possible endings.

Two Verbs In A Sentence

When you have two verbs in a German sentence, you place the conjugated verb in the second position and the unconjugated verb at the end of the sentence. Note – A conjugated verb is a verb that changes to indicate the gender, tense, number, person or other aspects of the sentence.

Tip 1 – Adjective endings without article (nominative, accusative and dative case) are similar to definite articles (der, die, das) without the letter “d”. The definite articles in accusative case are den, die, das and die.

These are the most important separable verbs to know: einkaufen (to go shopping), aufstehen (to get up), anfangen (to start), mitkommen (to come with), abholen (to collect), ankommen (to arrive), mitnehmen (to take with), fernsehen (to watch TV), anrufen (to call), vorbereiten (to prepare).

Verb conjugation technique for stems ending in t,d-

This category includes verbs whose stem ends in -d or -t, like arbeiten. This can be marked with addition of an extra e before endings of du and er,sie,es,ihr conjugations.

To form the perfect tense you need two verbs. The first is often haben - to have - and you're going to need the right part, such as ich habe - 'I have'. And the second is the past participle, such as gespielt. Ich habe gespielt.

What makes a German verb weak? ›

They are distinguished from the Germanic strong verbs by the fact that their past tense form is marked by an inflection containing a /t/, /d/, or /ð/ sound (as in English I walk~I walked) rather than by changing the verb's root vowel (as in English I rise~I rose).

One is to check the conjugation of the verb in the present tense. If there is a stem change in the singular, it is not only an irregular verb in the present tense but often also irregular in the past. e.g. “fahren” conjugates er/sie/es fährt in the third person singular and is therefore irregular.

2nd. person: The subject is always the personal pronoun “ihr” (you). The verb ending for the second person is “-t”: therefore “Ihr lernt Deutsch” (You learn German.).

The International Health Regulations (IHR) are an international legal instrument that covers measures for preventing the transnational spread of infectious diseases.

The German Plusquamperfekt, or past perfect tense, is used to describe an event that happened before another event or a certain point in the past. Let's take a look at a few examples: Er hatte das Abendessen schon gekocht, als sie nach Hause kam. (He already cooked dinner when she arrived home.)

In German, verbs exist as one of three types: regular, or weak, verbs, irregular verbs, and mixed verbs. Regular verbs follow conjugation patterns, whereas irregular and mixed verbs differ from these patterns in some or all of their verb tenses.

With over 230 million German speakers worldwide, there are many German dialects, with linguists saying as many as 250 dialects exist. German is the official language of Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Belgium, and Germany itself.

While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic or Spanish are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.

The five verb forms in English are root verb, third person singular present form of verb, present participle, simple past and past participle.