Verb Conjugation

Before conjugating a verb, you need to know which pronoun — which person — is the subject of the sentence. German has eight subject pronouns, grouped into singular and plural, plus a formal option that works for both.

Most German verbs are regular. The process is the same every time: take the infinitive, drop the -en to find the stem, then attach the ending that matches the subject pronoun.

Using machen (to make / to do) as the model — stem: mach-:

Two slots are worth noting: wir and sie/Sie both end in -en, which is the same as the infinitive. For any regular verb, those two forms are free — just read the infinitive as-is.

The regular endings apply almost universally, but certain stem endings make the resulting word difficult or impossible to pronounce as-is. German makes small, predictable tweaks in those cases — the endings themselves do not change, only the transition into them.

Sein (to be) and haben (to have) are the two most frequently used verbs in the language — and both are irregular in ways that cannot be derived from any rule. The only way through is to learn them directly. The upside is that you will see them in almost every exchange, so they become automatic faster than any verb you carefully study.

Sein draws from three historically separate Latin roots — which is why bin, ist, and sind look so different from each other. Haben is more recognisable, though it drops the b from its stem in the er/sie/es form: hat, not habt.

Some very common German verbs change the vowel inside their stem when used with du or er/sie/es. Every other form stays completely regular — same endings, same stem. Only those two slots behave differently.

There are two patterns. Verbs with e in the stem sometimes shift to i or ie; verbs with a gain an umlaut to become ä.

Modal verbs express possibility, ability, necessity, or permission — "can," "must," "want to," "may." German has six of them, and they share a conjugation pattern that is different from regular verbs in two important ways.

First, the ich and er/sie/es forms take no ending at all — they look identical to each other. Second, most modals change their stem vowel in the singular but revert to the original vowel in the plural.

The most common modal at A1 is können (to be able to / can):

Modals almost always pair with a second verb in the infinitive. That infinitive goes to the end of the sentence:

Some German verbs are built from a base verb and a prefix that carries extra meaning. In a sentence, the prefix detaches from the verb and moves to the very end. The base verb is conjugated normally in its usual position.

This can look alarming at first, because the verb seems to be in two pieces at opposite ends of the sentence. That is exactly what is happening, and it is one of the most consistent rules in German — the prefix always ends up last.

Take aufstehen (to get up) — base verb stehen, prefix auf-:

The base verb is conjugated exactly like any regular or irregular verb — the prefix has no effect on the endings:

Other common A1 separable verbs include anrufen (to call someone), einkaufen (to shop), ankommen (to arrive), and fernsehen (to watch TV). In the dictionary, separable verbs are listed as one word. In a sentence, you split them every time.