In this lesson, we will have a look at the regular German conjugations.
Resources for further reading:
How to pronounce German conjugations
Let’s start with the present tense and see how the verb endings change. Most verbs end in either –en or –n . Each type of verb (- en or – n) has a different set of endings.
-en verbs lachen (to laugh)
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-en verbs segeln (to sail)
Now let's see how regular verbs behave in the simple past tense.
-en verbs lachen (to laugh)
-n verbs segeln (to sail)
As you can see, the endings for the simple past tense are similar to those of the present tense. There are just a few more t's... But what about the past participle? Finding the p.p. of regular verbs is really easy: you simply take the stem and add "ge" and "t" in this fashion:
- ge + stem + t
So you will have:
You'll have noticed that gesegelt can be preceded by either sein or haben. Unlike English, German uses both auxiliary when composing the present perfect tense. A quick way to tell when to use sein and when to use haben is this: you use the auxiliary sein if you have a status change or a motion, as in "I have gone to Berlin", ich bin nach Berlin gegangen, and you use the auxiliary haben for all the other verbs.
Our lesson on conjugations wouldn't be complete, however, without a quick glance at the future tense. How is this made? We've already seen the present conjugation of the irregular verb werden in one of the previous lessons, and this is all we need. There are no subject endings in the future tense, because all you have to do is pick the right conjugation of werden and add the base verb you need!
-en verbs lachen (to laugh)
-n verbs segeln (to sail)
Here are a few recommended German lessons to try next!
- The German consonants are fairly easy to pronounce, you just need to remember the rules!
- Check out this lesson on the German dative.
- Click here for a lesson on the German genitive.
Bis bald!
Paul Weber: Rocket German