German Present Tense

Use the present tense to describe what is happening right now, what you do regularly or what you do in an ongoing situation.

What is the present tense?

We use the present tense to talk about what is happening currently or in the present time.

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)

• to express the near future

  ich hole dir ein Eis – I'll get you an ice-cream

In German, there are two groups of verbs:

• weak, or regular verbs
• strong, or irregular verbs

Weak verbs

This is the pattern that weak verbs follow:

1. Start with an infinitive, eg lernen

2. Next, you need to chop off the -en at the end of the infinitive form. What is left is called the stem, eg lern-

3. Decide which ending you need according to who's doing the action (the subject), eg ich, du, wir, Sie, etc

4. Finally, add the correct present tense ending to the stem, eg lern- > ich lerne Deutsch – I'm learning German.

   lernen → lern~~en~~ → so lern- is the stem

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   If you think about the endings like leaves, then the word ‘stem‘ is obvious - it’s what’s left once you have taken the endings (the leaves) off. In German, the ending of an infinitive verb (the verbal form you find in the dictionary) is always -en or -n.

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Using the verb hören as an example, you can see how you add these endings to the stem of a weak verb:

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Unlike English, German has three words for the word ‘you‘:

• du is singular - use du for one friend or relative, or someone you know well

• ihr is plural - use ihr for several friends or relatives, other people you know well

• Sie is formal and can be singular or plural - use Sie for people you don’t know or when you have to be respectful to them

  The formal Sie is always written with a capital S so that it is not mixed up with sie (she) or sie (they).

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Weak verbs with a difference

There is a group of slightly different weak verbs, eg

• finden – to find

• arbeiten – to work

• warten – to wait

• erwarten – to expect

• erfinden – to invent

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• when you take off the -en, you'll see that the stems of these particular verbs end either in the letter -d or -t

• you add the usual weak endings to most of the verb

• however, when you add the usual endings to the du, er/sie/es and ihr forms, they are not very clear, and therefore incorrect, eg er findt or sie wartt

• to make them clearer, and easier to pronounce, you have to add -e- between the stem and the ending for the du, er/sie/es and ihr forms only, eg er findet or sie wartet

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Do it like this:

This rule applies to all verbs whose stem ends in -d or -t.

• finden – to find

stem: find-

• ich finde – I find
• du findest – you find
• er findet – he finds
• sie findet – she finds
• es findet – it finds
• wir finden – we find
• ihr findet – you find
• Sie finden – you find
• sie finden – they find

Strong verbs

There are two groups of verbs in German:

• weak, or regular verbs
• strong, or irregular verbs

Strong verbs are called strong because they do not weakly follow the pattern of other verbs. They are more independent.

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This is what they do:

• some verbs have endings like weak verbs in the present tense, but are strong in some other tenses
• some verbs also make changes to the du and er/sie/es forms

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Vowel changes in strong verbs

Some strong verbs take the same endings as weak verbs, but the spelling and the vowel sound change in the du and er/sie/es forms.

The rest of the verb does not change at all.

These changes are important, as they alter the way the word is pronounced.

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Add i

Some verbs change the vowel sound by adding an i in the second and third person singular, eg lesen (to read) and sehen (to see).

lesen – to read

• ich lese

but

• du liest

• er liest

• sie liest

• es liest

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Add an umlaut

Some verbs change the vowel sound by adding an umlaut in the second and third person singular, eg fahren (to travel), tragen (to wear or carry) and waschen (to wash).

fahren – to travel

• ich fahre

but

• du fährst

• er fährt

• sie fährt

• es fährt

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Swap e for i

Some verbs change the vowel sound by swapping e for i in the second and third person singular, eg essen (to eat) and vergessen (to forget).

vergessen – to forget

• ich vergesse

but

• du vergisst
• er vergisst
• sie vergisst
• es vergisst

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