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A tense indicates the time an action is taking place.
If you want to indicate that something is an habitual action, a general
truth or is happening right now, you will need the present tense.
When you look up an
English verb in a dictionary to check what its German equivalent is you
will come across the so-called infintive, i.e. the basic form of the
verb.
In German, 99.99 per cent of infinitives end in "-en"
(some just in "-n").
The part before the "-(e)n" is called the stem or root of
the verb.
To form the present tense, you cut off the ending "-(e)n"
of the infinitive and add an ending to the stem.
This ending has to correspond to the subject (=
who or what is performing the action expressed by the verb) of the
sentence, e.g. if the subject is "ich", the ending is "-e". There are
hardly any exceptions to this rule.
Overview
Infinitive:
wohnen
-> wohn-
ich wohne
du wohnst // Sie
wohnen
er/sie/es/man wohnt
wir
wohnen
ihr wohnt // Sie
wohnen
sie
wohnen
Note
the 4 verb-forms that are identical to the
infinitive (exception:
sein [to be])
Note:
Phrases like "mein
Bruder" (my brother) or a name e.g.
"Patrick" can be replaced by "he", therefore the corresponding verb must
end in "-t", e.g.
Mein
Bruder wohnt in Berlin.
Patrick trinkt Kaffee.
Phrases like "meine
Schwester" (my sister) or a name e.g. "Patricia" can be replaced by
"she", therefore the corresponding verb must end in "-t", e.g.
Meine
Schwester wohnt in Berlin.
Patricia trinkt Kaffee.
Phrases like "meine Freunde" (my
friends) or names e.g. "Patricia and Patrick" can be replaced by "they",
therefore the corresponding verb must end in "-en", e.g.
Meine Freunde wohnen in Berlin.
Patricia und Patrick trinken Kaffee.
Phrases like "meine Freunde und ich" (my friends and
I) can be replaced by "we", therefore the corresponding
verb must end in "-en", e.g.
Meine Freunde und ich wohnen in Berlin.
Meine Freunde und ich trinken Kaffee.
You use the present tense to express:
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1. a general truth, e.g.
Berlin ist die Hauptstadt von Deutschland.
(Berlin is the capital of Germany.)
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2. a habitual action, e.g.
Sie spielt jedes Wochenende Golf.
(She plays golf every weekend.)
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3. what is happening right now, e.g.
Ich schreibe eine E-Mail. (I am writing an email.)
Note that unlike English, German doesn't have a so-called
continuous present tense, it only has a simple present tense,
i.e. English can differentiate between "I am playing soccer."
and "I play soccer.". In German, there is only one form: "Ich spiele Fußball." If you want to make clear in German, that
something is happening right now, you will have to add a word
such as "jetzt" (= "now") or "im Moment" (= "at the moment").
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4. what will happen in the future, as long as it is clear from
the context that you are referring to the future, e.g.
Wir fahren
am Samstag
nach Donegal. (On Saturday we
will go to Donegal.)
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5.
for actions that started in the past and are still going on,
the key words are seit (since, for) or schon
(already), e.g.
Sie lernt seit sechs Jahren Deutsch. (She has been
learning German for six years.)
Wie lange bist du schon da? (How long have you been
here?)
Note that in English, you
use the perfect tense to express the idea of a past action
continuing into the present.
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Some things to watch out for
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1. Verbs with a stem that ends in "-d" or "-t"
Once you take the -en off "arbeiten" or "finden", you end up with the stem "arbeit"
and "find".
That's not a problem if you are going to add an "-e" or an "-en", but
try to add "t" or "st" and you will realize that it is quite difficult
to pronounce the words. Therefore an "e" is inserted before the ending to
facilitate pronunciation:
ich arbeite
du arbeitest
// Sie arbeiten
er/sie/es/man
arbeitet
wir arbeiten
ihr arbeitet
// Sie arbeiten
sie arbeiten
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ich
finde
du
findest // Sie finden
er/sie/es/man
findet
wir
finden
ihr findet // Sie
finden
sie
finden
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Don't
worry, there aren't that many verbs that fall into this
category. And you will notice the difficulty right away once you
try to pronounce the word.
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2. There is a very small group of verbs where
the infinitive has lost the "e" in its ending, e.g. to
sail - segeln.
Instead of taking off the "-en", just take off the "-n" and add
the same set of endings as above.
ich segele
du segelst // Sie segeln
er/sie/es/man segelt
wir segeln
ihr segelt // Sie segeln
sie segeln
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3.
The stem of some verbs ends in
"-s", or "-ß" or "ss",
e.g. reisen (to travel), heißen (to be called) or küssen (to kiss)
To avoid too many "s", the ending for the du-form is just
"-t", instead of "-st", e.g.
Wie heißt
du? (What are you called?)
Wann reist
du nach Deutschland? (When will you travel to Germany?)
Warum kϋsst
du das Baby nicht? (Why don't you kiss the baby?)
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4. Verbs with a stem-change
With some German verbs, the stem changes in the "du" and
"er/sie/es/man"-
forms in the present tense.
The verb-endings, however, are the same. There aren’t that many verbs
with a
stem-change but some of them are very common, e.g.
infinitive:
fahren
ich fahre
du fährst
// Sie fahren
er/sie/es/man
fhrt
wir fahren
ihr fahrt //
Sie fahren
sie fahren
Click
here if you would
like find out about the other verbs with a stem-change.
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5. As in English, the verb "sein" (= "to be") is
totally irregular
ich bin
du bist // Sie sind
er/sie/es/man ist
wir sind
ihr seid // Sie sind
sie sind
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6. Another irregular verbs is "wissen"
(= to know)
ich
weiß
du
weißt // Sie wissen
er/sie/es/man
weiß
wir
wissen
ihr
wisst // Sie wissen
sie
wissen
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7.
Click here to access
information on the modal verbs in the present tense. |