‘Sein’ doesn’t even have a stem / root! It’s conjugations break down like this: Or, sometimes letters seem to materialize out of nowhere. In some cases, you can still see some of the same conjugations but other letters are added or dropped in the stem. The verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are usually the most irregular in any language. Similarly, the past participle combines the weak ‘t’ ending with a stem-vowel change. However, there is also a stem-vowel change like strong verbs. In the simple past tense, a ‘t’ is added to the stem just like a weak verb. There are only 9 mixed verbs in German, so they’re pretty easy to remember! Mixed verbs combine the typical rules for weak and strong verbs. geholfen ) for strong verbs are ge + (stem with changed vowel) + en NOTE: Notice here the absence of any conjugation at all for the 1st or 3rd Persons, Singular. NOTE: in the present tense, only the 2nd & 3rd Persons, Singular take stem-vowel changes. Strong verbs (about 150 of them) take a stem-vowel changes (in particular instances) in addition to usually using the regular conjugations. Weak verbs in the simple past for the 3rd person singular (er/sie/es) change the typical -t conjugation to an -e, just like the 1st person singular. Weak verbs (thousands of them!) do not additionally change the verb stem / root in the present tense, add a ‘t’ to the stem in the simple past, and form the past participle with ge + (stem) + t.ĭu kaufst → du kauftest → du hast gekauft
German conjugations are same for all verbs (independent from whether the verb is strong / weak / mixed), with only minor exceptions for modals and other oddballs or in the rarely-used simple past tense.
In English, generally only the 3rd Person Singular has a conjugation different from the other persons: To these stems / roots, we must add the conjugations, which primarily indicate person (I, you, he/she/it, we, y’all, they). Taking off these endings leaves us with the ‘stem’ or ‘root’. Most infinitives end with -en (some with -ern, -eln, or -ieren). These ‘dative’ verbs have implied direct objects: Ich helfe ihm (I help him ). These can be either ‘separable-prefix’ or ‘inseparable-prefix’ verbs.Ī body of German verbs are called ‘reflexive verbs’ because the subject of the sentence is doing something to himself: Ich rasiere mich (I’m shaving myself ).Ĭollocations are verbs paired with prepositions (and possibly other words): I’m thinking of him, I’m falling in love.Ībout 50 German verbs ‘take the dative’. Some German verbs have prepositions (or other words) added in front of the infinitive. Modal verbs are paired with infinitives: I can ski and perhaps I should ski, but I don’t like to ski during the week. Key verbs such as sein, haben, werden, the modal verbs and other oddballs are outliers with many, highly-unpredictable changes that don’t allow them to fit neatly in the strong / weak / mixed paradigm. Mixed verbs combine the rules/patterns of weak and strong. Strong verbs take more, less predictable changes. Weak verbs take few, predictable changes. Most verbs are categorized as strong, weak, or mixed. The infinitive then takes small changes, called ‘conjugations’ based on who the subject is (I, you, he, etc.): I sing, he sings I eat, he eats. The basic starting point for all verbs is the ‘infinitive’ form: to sing, to eat, to play.