German verbs with changing root vowel. Conjugation of strong verbs. Changing the vowel from au to äu
German verbs, like Russian ones, consist of a stem and an ending -en or -n.
Let's analyze the verb conjugation using a simple example:
lern en
The verb lernen (translation: teach, study) consists of a stem (red) and an ending (blue)
Verb endings, in turn, change depending on the person, number and tense in which the verb is used.
In German, as in Russian, there is
singular: I, you, he, she, it, you (polite form), woman, cat, boy
and plural: we, you, they, you (polite form), people, cities, books
There are also times. There are only six of them in German, but only five are used.
Let's start with the conjugation of the verb lernen in present time Prasens
Weak verb conjugation in Präsens
They also say in German: I teach, you teach, she teaches, we teach, and so on.
You can see that the forms for er, sie, es and ihr are the same and have the ending -t, also the verb form for wir, sie, Sie is similar to the initial form of the verb, that is, the Infinitiv of the verb and has the ending -en.
Features of conjugation of verbs in the present tense
If the verb stem (weak or strong, not changing the root vowel) ends in -d, t or the consonant combination chn, ffn, dm, gn, tm (e.g. antworten, bilden, zeichnen), then a vowel e.
If the stem of a verb (weak or strong) ends in -s, -ss, -ß, -z, -tz (e.g. grüßen, heißen, lesen, sitzen), then in the 2nd person singular s in the ending drops out, and the verbs get the ending -t.
Please note that the polite form of the verb (pronoun you) in German is the same as the 3rd person plural.
You see that strong verbs also have valid conjugation in the present tense.
The conjugations of such verbs can be carefully studied on a table specially developed by the Start Deutsch team
In addition to weak verbs, German has strong verbs:
a) Strong verbs in the 2nd and 3rd person singular change the root vowel:
a, au, o get an umlaut (e.g. fahren, laufen, halten)
the vowel e becomes i or ie (geben, lesen)
b) For strong verbs with a changeable root vowel, the stem of which ends in -t, in the 2nd and 3rd person singular the connecting vowel e is not added, in the 3rd person the ending is also not added (for example, halten - du hältst, er hält), and in the second person plural (where the root vowel does not change) they, like weak verbs, receive a connecting -e- (ihr haltet).
Also in German there are verbs, the conjugation of which must be learned by heart. These include:
Auxiliary verbs
sein (to be)
haben (to have)
werden (become)
according to their morphological features, they belong to irregular verbs, which, when conjugated in the present, show a deviation from the general rule.
Look up and learn the present tense conjugation of the auxiliary verbs Präsens. When learning German, these verbs must be known , because they are used not only in the present tense, but also with their help the past tense, the future tense and the passive, important in German, are formed.
AND modal verbs also need to learn by heart!
Note that modal verbs in 1st and 3rd person singular do not receive the ending -e and some of them lose their umlaut in conjugation.
If this topic is not yet clear to you, then you can watch a video on the conjugation of German verbs in the present tense.
Now let's move on to the conjugation of verbs in the simple past tense Präteritum.
To build a sentence in the simple past tense Prateritum you need to know the formation of the three forms of the verb and choose the 2-form Prateritum
1 form - infinitiv(initial form of the verb)
2 form - Prateritum(used to form the past simple Präteritum)
3 form - Patrizip 2(it is used to form the compound past perfect tense)
Let's take the same verb lernen. As you already know, the verb lernen is a weak verb. In order for you to better understand this you, we will also conjugate the strong verb fahren. First you need to choose the form of the verb we need (highlighted in bold). Then look at the table, and substitute the desired endings.
lernen- lernte - gelernt
fahren-fuhr-gefahren
That is, in the place in the table where there is a dash - the form Präteritum is used (lernte, fuhr, etc.)
You just need to remember the endings in this form and also correctly determine the 2nd form of the verb. And that's it! Pretty simple, right?
By the same principle hide auxiliary verbs in Prateritum:
Attention! Modal verbs are used in the past tense only in the Präteritum tense, even if you speak in Perfect!
Therefore, modal verbs in the form Präteritum you need to learn by heart!
It's not as difficult as it seems at first glance :)
Good luck learning German!
Svetlana Kizhikova,
In the last lesson, we looked at the conjugation of strong and weak verbs in German. It remains to find out how mixed and irregular verbs are conjugated, and what these names generally mean.
Conjugation of mixed verbs
Under mixed refers to such verbs that, when forming forms, combined the characteristics of both strong (change in the root vowel) and weak verbs (suffixes -te, -t).
The number of mixed verbs is not large, there are only eight of them, except for the verbs derived from them. Mixed conjugation verbs include verbs kennen, nennen, rennen, brennen, senden, wenden, bringen, denken.
The forms of these verbs are presented in the table. As you can see, these verbs change vowels at the root, one retains the formative suffixes -te, -t.
| infinitiv | Prateritum | Partizip II | Auxiliary | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rennen | rante | gerannt | sein/haben | run, run |
| brennen | brannte | gebrannt | haben | burn, burn |
| kennen | cannte | gekannt | haben | be familiar, know |
| nennen | nannte | genannt | haben | to call, name, name |
| senden | sandte | gesandt | haben | send, send |
| denken | dachte | gedacht | haben | think, think, think |
| bringen | brachte | gebracht | haben | bring, bring |
| wenden | wandte | gewandt | sein/haben | turn, turn over |
The conjugation of these verbs follows the same rule that we examined in the previous lesson - by adding personal endings. Consider the conjugation of the verb "kennen" - to be familiar, to know.
As you can see, there are no changes in the conjugation of mixed-type verbs in the present tense.
Conjugation of irregular verbs
Under irregular verbs are understood as those verbs that have their own unique features in conjugation and formation of forms (see table).
There are also few such verbs. These include: sein, haben, werden, gehen, stehen, bringen, tun.
Pay attention to verb conjugation sein, haben, werden and tun.
Consider the conjugation of the verb "sein" - to be, to be.
In terms of its functions, this verb is close to the verb "to be" in English and changes its forms depending on the number and person.
Verb "haben" - to have, also has some special features. It practically does not change its form, but in the 2nd and 3rd person singular this verb loses the letter “b”.
Verb "werden" - to become, which is usually used to denote the future tense, loses the letter "d" only in the 2nd person singular, and in the 2nd and 3rd person of the same number, the vowel "e" alternates with "i". Also in the 3rd person singular verb not acquires the ending "t".
Feature of the verb "tun" - to do in that not the usual suffix "en" is added to the stem of the verb, but only "n". Otherwise, this verb is conjugated according to the rule, like the verbs gehen, stehen, bringen.
I hope you have carefully studied the material in this lesson, and therefore you can easily complete the following exercises!
Tasks for the lesson
Exercise 1.
Answer the following questions:
- What are mixed type verbs?
- Do root vowels change when conjugating mixed verbs in the present tense?
- What are the names of verbs that have unique characteristics when conjugated?
- Which German verb is similar in function to the English verb "to be"?
Exercise 2.
Say which group the following verbs belong to (mixed or irregular):
sein (to be), haben (to have), rennen (to run), denken (to think, meditate), gehen (to go), tun (to do, to do), kennen (to know).
Exercise 3
Conjugate the following verbs:
senden (to send), stehen (to stand), nennen (to name), haben (to have), sein (to be).
Answer 1
- Mixed verbs change the vowel at the root, but retain the endings -te, -t.
- No, they don't.
- irregular verbs.
- The verb "sein".
Irregular verbs: sein, haben, gehen, tun.
Mixed verbs: rennen, denken, kennen.
These are the verbs you can't do without: fahren - drive, sprechen- speak, talk, lesen- to read, sehen- watch, see, geben- give, nehmen- take, essen- eat... But they have one feature: a change in the root vowel in the 2nd and 3rd persons of the singular present tense. These forms are highlighted in bold below.
The pattern is this: all these are strong verbs, the root vowel of which can be subject to any changes. If a strong verb has a vowel in the root i or diphthong ei(bitten- ask, heissen- be called, be called), then further changes to the root vowels are not possible. And if the root of a strong verb has a vowel a, diphthong au or vowel e, then in the overwhelming majority of cases, such verbs change the root vowel in the 2nd and 3rd litres. unit present tense.
The spelling of some of these verbs is determined by the need to convey a long or short vowel:
Just like essen - eat, strong verbs conjugate vergessen - forget and fressen- eat, eat (about animals and roughly - about people). Strong verbs with prefixes are conjugated in the same way as the corresponding verbs without prefixes: for example, treten - step on (sth.)- betreten - to enter (into a room), sprechen- speak, talk– besprechen- discuss.
Strong verbs gehen - go And stehen - to stand also have e in the root, but they have a vowel when conjugated does not change: ich gehe - du gehst, er geht; ich stehe - du stehst, er steht.
Now you know how the verb sprechen is conjugated - speak, talk, and you can report what language you, your companion, etc. speak. Here are the symbols for different languages:
- Russisch ["rʋsɪʃ] - in Russian
- Deutsch- in German
- Englisch ["εŋlɪʃ] - in English
- Franzosisch- in French
- Spanisch ["ʃpa:nɪʃ] - in spanish
- Italian- in Italian
- Chinesisch [çi "ne: zɪʃ] - in Chinese
So, "ich spreche Deutsch". Make up examples with the verb sprechen in different persons and numbers and the symbols of the languages. Ask a question to the interlocutor (addressing him to "you" and "you"), whether he speaks such and such a language.
Very useful in such cases are the explanations that can be inserted between "ich spreche" and the name of the language:
- auch- too, also
- ein wenig- a little
- ein bisschen ["bisçən] - a little, just a little
- nur- only
Example: Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch. - I speak German a little bit.
According to the old German orthography, the nouns Russisch, Deutsch, etc., on the one hand, and the adverbs russisch, deutsch, etc., were distinguished. - with another. Now the names of languages in all cases are written with a capital letter.
According to the way the basic forms are formed, all verbs in German are divided into weak, strong and irregular. The formation of Imperfekt (Präteritum) and Partizip II of all weak verbs obeys one general rule and does not cause difficulties. The basic forms of irregular verbs can be memorized in just a few days, since the number of such verbs is limited.
Strong verbs in German so numerous that the need to remember them can cause panic and self-doubt. In fact, everything is not so scary.
So, what is the difference between strong verbs and weak verbs in German?
Changing the root vowel when conjugated, for example:
infinitiv |
Prasens(3l.unit.h.) |
Imperfect |
Partizip II |
lesen(to read) |
liet |
las |
gelesen |
comment(come) |
kommt |
cam |
gekommen |
nehmen (to take) |
nimmt |
nahm |
genommen |
Ending -en in Partizip II (weak verb ending in Partizip II -t), for example:
Appearance umlaut or changing the root vowel e, ä or ö on the i in 2l. unit and 3l. unit Präsens (not always), for example:
raten-er-r ä
t (he advises)
stoßen - er st ö
ßt (he pushes)
bergen-erb i rgt (he saves)
essen-er i sst (he eats)
For a better memorylist of strong German verbscan be divided into several subgroups (according to the nature of the changes in the root vowel in the main forms):
|
ie-o-o |
fly - fliegen - flog - geflogen |
|
i-a-o |
win - gewinnen - gewann - gewonnen |
|
i-a-u |
find - finden - fand - gefunden |
|
e-a-o |
take - nehmen - nahm - genommen |
|
e-a-e |
|
|
i-a-e |
ask - bitten - bat - gebeten |
|
a-u-a |
wear - tragen - trug - getragen |
|
e/ ä/ ö/ü - o - o |
raise - heben - hob - gehoben |
|
a-ie-a |
fry - braten - briet - gebraten |
Table of strong German verbs. Top - 30
A summary table of strong and irregular verbs can almost always be found in a dictionary. Remembering everything is quite difficult, it takes a lot of time. We suggest you start with the thirty most used strong verbs in German.
Strong verbs (die starken Verben) are the most complex verbs in German. Memorizing 5 new words every day will make the learning process easier and more enjoyable.
In this lesson we will analyze verbs with inflected vowel. It is worth being patient here, since verbs are the most important part of the German language as a system. We will talk a lot more about verbs. Without them, nowhere, so it is very important to use them correctly.
We have already met the endings of the verbs that are given. However, not all German verbs are conjugated this way. In this step, we will get acquainted with the second group of verbs, which not only change the ending, but also the middle of the word (more precisely, one vowel in the middle of the word).
For example, the verb essen- eat (eat)
| ich | essay | wir | essen |
| du | i sst | ihr | esst |
| er/sie/es | i sst | Sie/sie | essen |
What is going on here? The vowel in the middle of the word changes, and only with du And er/sie/es . That is, changes occur only in the first column. There are words that e is changing i or ie , as well as words in which a changes to ä . We just have to remember these words. Below are the most commonly used verbs with a modified vowel.
e➙ie
| ich | lese | wir | lesen |
| du | l ie st | ihr | lest |
| er/sie/es | l ie st | Sie/sie | lesen |
| empfehlen | du empfiehlt, er empfiehlt | recommend |
| befehlen | du befiehlst, er befiehlt | order |
| lesen | du liest, er liest | to read |
| sehen | du siehst, er sieht | watch, see |
| Stehlen | du stielst, er stielt | steal, steal |
e ➙ i
| essen | du isst, er isst | eat |
| geben | du gibst, er gibt | give |
| helfen | du hilfst, er hilft | to help |
| nehmen | du nimmst, er nimmt | take |
| sprechen | du sprichst, er spricht | talk |
| vergessen | du vergisst, er vergisst | forget |
| werden | du wirst, er wird | become |
| Brechen | du brichst, er bricht | break, break |
| sterben | du stirbst, er stirbt | die |
| gelten | du gilst, er gilt | reckon, treat |
| treffen | du triffst, er trifft | meet |
| treten | du trittst, er tritt | advance |
| werfen | du wirfst, er wirft | throw |
a ➙ ä
An example of a verb with an inflected vowel a ➙ ä:
| ich | falle | wir | fallen |
| du | f ä llst | ihr | fall |
| er/sie/es | f ä llt | Sie/sie | fallen |
| fahren | du fährst, er fährt | drive |
| fangen | du fangst, er fangt | catch, catch |
| gefallen | du gefällst, er gefällt | like |
| fallen | du fallst, er fallt | fell |
| laufen | du laufst, er lauft | run away |
| tragen | du tragst, er tragt | wear |
| waschen | du waschst, er wascht | wash |
| schlagen | du schlägst, er schlägt | beat |
| wachsen | du wachst, er wachst | grow |
| lassen | du lässt, er lässt | leave |
| halten | du hältst, er hält | Keep |
| laden | du lädst, er lädt | ship |