German 2: The Present Tense and Word Order

Two words, ich wohne, already show how a German verb works. The ending -e belongs to ich; with du it becomes du wohnst, with wir it becomes wir wohnen. English changes the verb only once, for he, she and it (“she lives”). German changes it for almost every person, and the endings repeat across hundreds of verbs.

The second thing to learn is where the verb goes. In a German statement the verb is always the second element, whatever comes first, and in some clauses it moves to the very end. That one habit explains most of the word order that makes German look strange. This piece teaches the present-tense endings, the three ways to say “you”, the verbs that change their vowel, and the verb-second rule, and gives you a trainer that drills the forms and brings back the ones you miss.

Your device has no German voice, so the play buttons are hidden.

Who is who: the pronouns

German has six persons, as English does if you count “you” twice. Unlike Spanish or Italian, German does not drop the subject: the pronoun or a noun is always there, even though the ending already shows who it is.

	Singular	Plural
1st	ich (I)	wir (we)
2nd	du (you, one person you know well)	ihr (you, several people you know well)
3rd	er, sie, es (he, she, it)	sie (they)
Formal	Sie (you, polite, for one person or several)

Notice that sie does three jobs. Small sie with a singular verb is “she” (sie wohnt); small sie with a plural verb is “they” (sie wohnen); capital Sie is the polite “you”, and it takes exactly the same form as “they” (Sie wohnen). The verb ending and the capital letter tell them apart. In speech, context does.

The regular endings

The form in the dictionary is the infinitive, and almost every one ends in -en: wohnen, machen, kaufen. Take off the -en and you have the stem: wohn-, mach-, kauf-. The present tense is the stem plus one of five endings.

	Ending	machen	arbeiten	heißen
ich	-e	mache	arbeite	heiße
du	-st	machst	arbeitest	heißt
er, sie, es	-t	macht	arbeitet	heißt
wir	-en	machen	arbeiten	heißen
ihr	-t	macht	arbeitet	heißt
sie, Sie	-en	machen	arbeiten	heißen

Two shortcuts make the table smaller than it looks. The wir and sie/Sie forms are always the same as the infinitive. And the er form and the ihr form are the same in regular verbs: er macht, ihr macht.

Two columns show small adjustments that keep the words sayable. When the stem ends in -t or -d (arbeit-, find-), or in m or n after another consonant (öffn-, rechn-), an extra e slips in before -st and -t: du arbeitest, er findet, sie öffnet. When the stem ends in an s sound (s, ß, z, x), du takes only -t, because the s is already there: du heißt, du tanzt, du reist. Verbs that end in -eln drop an e in the ich form: sammeln gives ich sammle.

The trainer’s first group has thirty verbs to start building sentences with, such as machen (do, make), wohnen (live), kaufen (buy), lernen (learn), brauchen (need) and arbeiten (work). It also has common verbs like gehen (go), kommen (come) and trinken (drink), which are irregular in the past but perfectly regular in the present.

One present, three English tenses

German has no “-ing” form and no helper like “do”. Ich koche is “I cook”, “I am cooking” and “I do cook”. With a time word it often covers the near future too: Morgen fahre ich nach Wien, “Tomorrow I’m going to Vienna.” And with seit (since, for) it covers something that started in the past and is still going on, where English uses “have been”: Ich wohne seit zwei Jahren hier, “I have been living here for two years.” Saying Ich habe hier gewohnt instead would suggest you have moved away.

A short exchange that uses only what is on this page:

—Arbeitest du hier? ▶	Do you work here?
—Nein, ich studiere hier. Ich arbeite in einem Café. ▶	No, I study here. I work in a café.
—Wo wohnst du? ▶	Where do you live?
—Ich wohne seit Mai in Graz. Und du? ▶	I’ve been living in Graz since May. And you?

Du, ihr or Sie?

Du is for one person you are on close terms with: family, friends, children, and usually other students or young people of your age. Ihr is the plural of du, for a group of such people. Sie is the polite form, for one person or several: adults you do not know, people in shops and offices, and, by default, colleagues and bosses. Saying du is called duzen, saying Sie is siezen.

The line is moving: many young companies, online communities and sports clubs use du from the start. The switch is usually offered by the older or more senior person: Wollen wir uns duzen? When unsure, start with Sie.

Verbs that change their vowel

A group of common verbs changes the vowel of the stem in exactly two forms: du and er, sie, es. Every other form keeps the vowel of the infinitive. There are three main patterns, plus one small one.

Pattern	du	er, sie, es	but	Also
e → i	gibst	gibt	wir geben	nehmen (nimmst), sprechen, helfen, essen (isst), treffen, vergessen
e → ie	liest	liest	wir lesen	sehen (siehst), empfehlen
a → ä	fährst	fährt	wir fahren	schlafen, tragen, waschen, halten (hältst, hält)
au → äu	läufst	läuft	wir laufen	laufen is the common one

Nothing in the infinitive tells you which verbs change, so dictionaries show it, usually by giving the er form: geben (gibt), fahren (fährt). Learn the two forms together. Two small spelling effects come with the change: in nehmen the h drops and the m doubles (du nimmst, er nimmt), and in halten the er form loses its ending altogether (er hält).

The verb comes second

Here is the rule that shapes every German sentence: in a statement, the conjugated verb is the second element. Not the second word: the second building block. The first block can be the subject, a time, a place or the object; the verb follows it, and the subject moves behind the verb if it is not first.

Starting with the time or place is very common. The usual mistake is to copy English: Morgens ich trinke puts two blocks before the verb.

Questions. A yes-or-no question puts the verb first: Trinkst du Kaffee? A question with a question word puts that word first and the verb second: Wann trinkst du Kaffee? Wo wohnt ihr?

Clauses with weil, dass, wenn. After words like weil (because), dass (that) and wenn (if, when), the conjugated verb goes to the very end of its clause:

Two more end positions will come up in the next pieces, and both follow the same idea that German likes to close a clause with a verb. When a sentence has two verbs, the second one goes to the end: Ich kann heute nicht kommen. And some verbs split, sending a small prefix to the end: aufstehen (get up) gives Ich stehe um sieben auf. You only need to recognise these for now.

To make a sentence negative, put nicht after the verb and its object, or before the word you are negating: Ich arbeite heute nicht; Ich wohne nicht in Berlin. A noun with “a” or no article is negated with kein instead: Ich habe kein Auto. The next piece covers kein with the articles.

Train the forms: the conjugation trainer

A prompt appears, such as wir · machen · to do, to make, and you type the form. A wrong or revealed form comes back sooner (after about three questions, and again after about nine), and forms you keep getting right come up less often. Tap the umlaut buttons if your keyboard makes them slow, or switch on ae, oe, ue, ss to type the standard fallback spellings. Start with the regular group; add the stem-changers when the endings feel easy.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the infinitive. Ich wohnen is what a beginner says; the verb has to change: ich wohne.
• Changing the vowel everywhere. Wir fähren and ich gibe are wrong. The change is only in du and er, sie, es.
• Two blocks before the verb. Heute ich arbeite is wrong; Heute arbeite ich is right.
• The verb in the middle after weil. weil ich bin müde is heard in casual speech but counts as a mistake in writing; write weil ich müde bin.
• Using du with everyone. With an older stranger, a shop assistant or an official, use Sie until invited otherwise.

Your next four days

Ten minutes a day, in this order: review the cards that are due, do the drill, then say two or three sentences aloud.

Day	Trainer	Say aloud
1	10 forms, regular group	Three things you do every day, each starting with ich.
2	10 forms, regular group	The same three things, each starting with a time: Morgens …
3	10 forms, stem-changers	Ask a friend three questions with du: Fährst du …? Liest du …?
4	10 forms, both groups	Two sentences with weil, the verb at the end.

What sticks

• The present is the stem plus -e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en; the wir and sie/Sie forms equal the infinitive.
• An extra e after -t and -d stems (arbeitest); only -t for du after an s sound (heißt).
• The pronoun is never dropped; sie can be she, they or, with a capital, the polite you.
• Du for one close person, ihr for several, Sie for polite distance; when unsure, Sie.
• Stem-changers change only in du and er, sie, es: gibst, gibt; fährst, fährt.
• The conjugated verb is the second element of a statement, first in a yes-or-no question, and last after weil, dass and wenn.