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German Present Tense

List of all topics in the level A1

This lesson contains topics:

1. Simple present tense in German
2. German present tense conjugation
1. German regular verb conjugation
2. Exceptions in the conjugation of regular verbs
3. German irregular verbs conjugation

At the end of this lesson, you would be able to:

1. make simple German sentences in the present tense
2. conjugate regular and irregular verbs

1. Simple present tense in German

In German, "das Präsens" is the present tense. German has only one way to express the present tense. For example, in English, we have three ways to express the present, i.e. “I eat”, “I am eating” and I do eat”. In German, for these three we only have one form i.e. “Ich esse.”

Additionally, “Ich esse” also gives meanings of the simple future i.e. I’ll eat. We can add a time in the future to explicitly make it a future tense, for example, “Ich esse morgen.” (I’ll eat tomorrow.) Further explanation of future tense is discussed in lesson 28 (Simple Future).

So, the translation of the sentence “Ich esse” can be”:

1. I eat.
2. I am eating.
3. I do eat.
4. I’ll eat.

The context of the sentence clears the meaning. For example, if person 1 asks, “would you like to eat the cake tomorrow?” Person 2 replies, “Ja, ich esse.” (Yes, I’ll eat.)

Person 1 asks, “are you eating bread?”
Person 2 replies, “Ja, ich esse das Brot.” (Yes, I am eating bread.)

If the question is, “Do you eat bread?” again the answer would be in Präsens. “Ja, ich esse das Brot”, but this time English translation would be “Yes, I eat bread”.

Optionally, the word "gerade" (right now / at the moment) can be added to emphasize the progressive form. For example, "Ich esse gerade" (I am eating/I am eating right now). However, German verbs are inflected, i.e. the ending of the verb changes according to personal pronouns and their singular or plural forms.

We have already learned the conjugation of the German verb “haben” (to have) in the last lesson. Other verbs in German are also conjugated in an almost similar way with minor differences.

2. German present tense conjugation

In the German language, verb endings change more often than in the English language. In English, change only occurs in the third person singular, where we add “-s” ending e.g. "He eats". In German the verb ending changes according to whether the verb is used in the first person, second person, third person, and also to whether it is used in plural form or singular.

Verbs in German can be divided into two main categories.

1. Regular verbs (Regelmäßige Verben)
2. Irregular verbs (Unregelmäßige Verben)

2.1 German regular verb conjugation

Though "haben" is not a regular verb, but if you have learned the conjugation of haben, you can now conjugate all the German regular verbs. The majority of German verbs are regular verbs.

German verbs have unique stems (base of the verb). The stem in a regular verb never changes in its conjugation. To find a stem we remove the "-en" or "-n" ending from the infinitive form of a verb. For example, the stem of the verb "haben" is "hab-". We have then used different endings with the stem "hab-" for 1. person, 2. person, 3. person, and also for their singular and plural forms.

Following are some regular verbs and their stems. Stems from other German verbs can be extracted in the same way.

In the regular verb’s conjugation, after removing the ending "-en" or "-n" from the stem of the infinitive form of the verb, add the following endings to the verb’s stem.

For more clarity, see the below examples of verb conjugations.

1st Example: Conjugation of “machen” (to do). Stem of “machen” is mach-

See the below examples of complete sentences with the verb "machen". Please note that each sentence in the German language starts with a capital letter. In the coming examples in this lesson we are not starting sentences with capital letters to differentiate between the polite form “Sie” and “sie” as the feminine personal pronoun, ‘she’.

Die Hausarbeit is a compound noun. It is a combination of Das Haus (home) and Die Arbeit (work). Please see lesson 3 to learn more about nouns and their combinations.

2nd Example of the regular verb conjugation: Conjugation of "studieren" (to study). The stem of studieren is "studier-".

2.2 Exceptions in the conjugation of regular verbs

2.2.1 The verb's stem ends in the letter -d or -t

Verbs, in which stems end in the letter "-d" or "-t", the ending "-est" is added to the second person singular, and the ending "-et" is added to the third person singular. For example, see the following following conjugation of the verb "arbeiten".

The stem of arbeiten is "arbeit-".

2.2.2 The verb's ends in the letter -s or -ß

Verbs, in which stems end in the letter "-s" or "-ß", the ending "-t" is added to the second person singular. For example, in the verb "wissen" and "heißen". There are only a few verbs whose stems end in "-s" or "-ß".

Following is the conjugation of "wissen":

Conjugation of "heißen":

"Heißen" is an important verb. It is used to mention names and meanings. For example, ich heiße Thomas. (My name is Thomas). Wie heißen Sie? (What is your name?). The literal meaning of heißen is “be called” or “to mean”.

Some examples of the verb "heißen":

Wie heißt der Hund? (What is the name of the dog?)

Der Hund heißt Bello. (The dog’s name is Bello.)

Was heißt das? (what does this mean?)

Was heißt das auf Deutsch? (What does this mean in German?)

Was heißt das auf Englisch? (What does this mean in English?)

Was heißt der Hund auf Englisch? (What's the dog in English?)

Wie heißt die Stadt? (What is the name of the city?)

Die Stadt heißt Berlin. (The name of the city is Berlin/The city is called Berlin.)

2.3 German irregular verbs conjugation

Based on conjugation, round about 200 German verbs are called irregular verbs. The irregularity of a verb means that its stem changes during conjugation. In the present tense (das Präsens), normally the irregular verb’s stem deviates in the second-person and third-person conjugation, but sometimes also in the first-person singular. The most common stem changes in the second-person and third-person are:

• Change in the vowel
• Change in the umlaut
• Change in the diphthong, e.g. ie to ei, etc

Some verbs conjugate regularly in the present tense (das Präsens), but their conjugations in other tenses are irregular, thus they are placed in the irregular category, e.g. the verb bleiben (to stay).

Some commonly used irregular verbs are:
essen (to eat)
sprechen (to speak)
sehen (to see)
geben (to give)
helfen (to help)
lesen (to read)
nehmen (to take)

Conjugation of the irregular verb “essen” (to eat): Please pay attention to the stem change in the second-person singular and third-person singular.

The following is the conjugation of another irregular verb “sprechen” (to speak):

Vocabulary building

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