German verbs have forms for a range of subjects, indicating number and social status: •
First-person singular: 'I';
ich •
Second-person familiar: 'you' (as used to a friend);
du • Second-person familiar: 'you' (as used to a friend);
Du (possible form in letters, traditionally used for all kinds of addresses) • Second-person polite: 'you';
Sie (with capital
S) •
Third person: 'he', 'she', 'it';
(er, sie, es) with the same form for all three • First-person plural: 'we';
wir • Second-person plural:
ihr • Third-person plural: 'they';
sie (not capitalised) The subject does not have to be one of these pronouns, but can instead be anything that has the same person and number. For example, in the sentences
Der Ball ist rund. ("The ball is round.") and
Es ist rund. ("It is round."), the verb is in the same form: third-person singular. In German, the first-person and third-person plural and second-person plural-polite forms are identical for all verbs in every tense.
Sie in the second person is used to address one or more people of high status. As a summary of German tenses, moods and aspects: • The German
present tense matches both the English present ("I walk to work every day") and also the
present progressive ("I
am walking to work right now"), to which standard German has no direct equivalent. (See below for a colloquial alternative.) It is formed similarly to the English present tense, by directly conjugating the relevant verb to match the subject. • The
perfect (
I have gone to work; also sometimes called the
present perfect) is mostly formed, again as in English, from the appropriate present tense form of 'to have' (
haben) and a past participle of the relevant verb placed at the end of the clause. Some intransitive verbs involving motion or change take 'to be' (
sein) instead of
haben; this may depend on the exact meaning of the sentence. Both
haben and
sein are used in the present tense, and are irregular verbs. • 'He
has read the book':
Er hat das Buch gelesen. (Literally, "He has the book read.") • 'He
has gone to the cinema':
Er ist ins Kino gegangen. (but literally, "He
is into the cinema gone.") • The
preterite (
I closed the door; usually avoided when speaking) is formed from the verb, as in English. The verb may be regular or irregular. • The
pluperfect (
I had read the book, when...) is formed in the same way as in English: identically to the perfect, except with an preterite form of
haben or
sein instead of a present tense form. • He
had read the book;
Er hatte das Buch gelesen. • He
had gone to the cinema;
Er war ins Kino gegangen. • The
future tense (
I will read the book or ''I'm going to read the book
) is formed from the appropriate present tense form of the verb werden'' (to become) and, as in English, the infinitive of the relevant verb. • I
will read the book:
Ich werde das Buch lesen. • A classic but easily avoided mistake made by English-speakers learning German is to use "
Ich will" – which actually means
I want to. • The
imperative (
Be quiet!,
Open the door!) is formed by direct conjugation of the verb and varies by number and status of the people addressed, unlike English which always uses an infinitive. •
Be quiet:
Sei ruhig! (when speaking to one person); but
Seien Sie ruhig! when speaking to an authority figure.
Sei and
Seien are both formed from
sein (be). • The
conditional (
I would do it) can be formed from
würden (
would) and the infinitive of the relevant verb, placed at the end of the clause. • I
would love her;
Ich würde sie lieben. • Additional forms of the conditional (known as
Konjunktiv I & II, for the present and preterite) also exist. They are equivalent to English forms such as
If I were rich or
If I loved him, (but also
It would be great) and exist for every verb in the present and preterite tense. They are often avoided for uncommon verbs. For the future tense conditional, the conditional form of
werden is used with an infinitive. • If I
were rich;
Wenn ich reich wäre, ... • If I
had more money;
Wenn ich mehr Geld hätte, ... • It
would be fantastic;
Es wäre fantastisch • The
passive (
It is done) may be formed for any tense. It is formed from the past participle and the appropriate form of the verb
werden (to become). • The lawn
is being mowed;
Der Rasen wird gemäht (Literally, "
The lawn becomes/is becoming mowed.") • The lawn was mowed;
Der Rasen wurde gemäht. (Literally, "
The lawn became/was becoming mowed.") • The lawn has been mowed;
Der Rasen ist gemäht geworden. • The lawn will be mowed;
Der Rasen wird gemäht werden. (This uses the verb
werden twice in one sentence, but is still quite correct.) • The lawn would be mowed;
Der Rasen würde gemäht werden. • Many German verbs can be converted into the names of jobs, adjectives and
verbal nouns describing processes (as English
to clean becomes
the cleaner,
the man cleaning the window and
the cleaning process). These generally follow regular patterns, with endings such as
-en and
-ung. Colloquial German, in particular in the
Rhineland and
Ruhr areas, uses these verbal nouns with
sein to create a kind of present progressive known as the
rheinische Verlaufsform: • I'm working; "
Ich bin am Arbeiten." •
Arbeiten is not a verb as in the English equivalent but a noun, and is therefore capitalised. A literal translation would be: "''I'm at the working.''" • A colloquial method to express future actions is to use present tense with an adjective like
tomorrow showing that the event will happen in the future: • Tomorrow, I
am going to buy groceries;
Morgen kaufe ich Lebensmittel. (Literally,
Tomorrow, I buy groceries.) ==Regular
-en verbs (weak verbs) (
lieben, to love)==