German Verb Conjugation

6.2: German Verb Conjugation

German verb conjugation is a great aspect of the German language. It is not too difficult at all, and it is extremely important if you don't want to sound like a retard when speaking German! So with no further delays, let us begin this lesson.

Conjugating a verb is sort of like cutting a rose. Weird analogy you might think? Well let me show you why. The stem of a rose, as we all know, does not change. The rose branches may be cut, broken off, bloom with flower petals, but the stem is strong and firm. It is always constant.

So is the stem of a verb. Conjugation in German is not hard. It requires identifying the stem of the verb and knowing what to do with it, once you find it. Let us look at an example.

What are some verbs in English that we can look at first? Think of some off the top of your head. How about running, walked, looked, jumping, and tripped. What is the stem of these verbs? The stem of these verbs is run, walk, look, jump, and trip.

The same principles and ideas apply to the stems of verbs in German. Locate the stem, keep it constant, and apply the change as necessary. Does that sound easy to you? It does to me. Now let us have a look at a German example.

The infinitive form of regular German verbs ends with "en". And the stem is this basic form without the ending. So if we take the verb “gehen”, to go, what do you think the stem is? Right, it’s “geh”, which alone is not a word, just the stem. Now you may be wondering just how many verb endings the German language has. Well, it does have more verb endings than English. Do not get disheartened though. Some verb endings are normally repeated and there is some sort of pattern to things. Let me explain. Which endings do you have to add to the stem? That depends on the context of the verb. For regular verbs in the present tense the endings are:

„-e” ich gehe (I go)

„-st“ du gehst (you go)

„-t” er/sie/es geht (he/she/it goes)

„-en“ wir gehen (we go)

„-t“ ihr geht (you go)

„-en“ sie gehen (they go)

Unfortunately there are irregular verbs as well, and like in English the endings change with the tense you use (like we add “-ed” in the past tense). But you can learn and practice all that and more in detail using the Rocket German course.

German Verbs >>

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