

Haben or sein will act as the auxiliary verb, or helping verb, to form the perfect tense. In order to conjugate verbs in the perfect tense we use the present tense form of the verb sein (to be) or haben (to have) and the past participle. This can be either verbally or in writing, such as in an email. The Perfekt tense is used in German to discuss events that occurred in the recent past (minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months ago), or when you are addressing someone informally.

The last sentence is an example of the present tense being used to talk about something in the near future.

This is the first tense that you will learn in German and it is used to talk about what you are doing right now, what you regularly or always do, something ongoing, and the near future. So, in English, we conjugate "to run" in present tense third person singular as "he runs", while in German laufen becomes er läuft. For example, we have "to kick" ( treten) and "to run" ( laufen). In German, the infinitive verbs are those with -en endings, while in English, they have "to" before them. This is known as conjugation when you take the infinitive verb and change the ending to indicate the person and time an action was taken. Verb Tenses in Germanīefore you can begin to understand German verbs, you need to understand tenses and conjugation.ĭepending on when the action took place and who did it, the verb will have a different ending. The hardest part of any task is getting started, but with our simple explanations, tips, and examples, you can sink your teeth into a new language with confidence and learn to speak German.įeel free to peruse our German verbs list, which will teach you 50 of the most useful and common German verbs, and start to get a feel for the language.

Hopefully, by the end of this German verb guide, you will feel inspired to kick-start your language learning journey and begin to learn German. In this post, we address the six tenses in German, the basics of conjugation, and the most common German verbs. Willkommen! Welcome to our guide to German verbs for beginners.
