The German verb "to be" - meaning and use (2023)

FAQs

What is the German verb for to be? ›

Sein (to be) is a very important verb, and it is used in many different situations, including describing people and things, giving opinions and saying where you are.

When you use mögen you are making a statement about your feelings and your feelings only. You are saying absolutely nothing about the object. With gefallen you at least partially describe the object or person. Take for instance a picture.

Two Verbs In A Sentence

When you have two verbs in a German sentence, you place the conjugated verb in the second position and the unconjugated verb at the end of the sentence. Note – A conjugated verb is a verb that changes to indicate the gender, tense, number, person or other aspects of the sentence.

The rule is: if there's movement from one place to another, use 'sein'. If there's not, use 'haben'. Example: I played. This example uses 'haben' - ich habe gespielt.

You'll see a few common patterns in present-tense verbs, especially in the regular ones. The ich form will generally end in an -e, the du form with an -st, and the er/sie/es and ihr forms with a -t.

(mein) Schnuckiputzi / Schnucki. (my) sweetie pie, darling.

The modal verbs wollen and möchten are similar in meaning. Both describe something that one would like to have or do, but with a different emphasis.

(das) baby [österr.]

What are 5 regular verbs in German? ›

sein (to be), frühstücken (to eat breakdast) duschen (to shower), machen (to make), fahren (to drive), nehmen (to take), lesen (to read), schreiben (to write), haben (to have), essen (to eat), trinken (to drink), kochen (to cook), sitzen (to sit), spielen (to play).

The perfect tense, also called present perfect (Perfekt), is a past tense. We use it to speak about actions completed in the recent past. In spoken German, the present perfect tense is often used instead of the past tense. We can translate the perfect tense using the English simple past tense.

Adjective. sien. (stressed) third-person singular possessive pronoun. his. her.

The perfect tense is formed with an auxiliary verb – sein (to be) sein, Präsens or haben (to have) haben, Präsens – and the past participle: subject + auxiliary verb + other information + past participle. Anna ist gestern mit dem Auto gefahren. Anna drove the car yesterday.

Past Tense in German

There is the simple past tense called "Präteritum" (sometimes called the "Imperfect tense"), the present perfect, which is "Perfekt," and the past perfect, which they call "Plusquamperfekt" in German. Just like in English, German speakers frequently use the “Perfekt” form to describe past actions.

The German Konjunktiv II is the verb form that we use for polite requests, wishes, suggestions, theories and hypothetical situations. We conjugate modal verbs in the Subjunctive II by adding the subjunctive endings to the simple past stem and adding an umlaut.

Most German verbs follow regular rules with simple endings that can be learned quickly. Daily practice and repetition will help you learn these concepts faster. You should start by learning regular verbs in the present tense. These rules are simplest to learn and doesn't require hours of memorization.

With plenty of straightforward rules, German is not actually as hard to learn as most people think. And since English and German stem from the same language family, you might actually be surprised at the things you pick up without even trying! And on top of it all, it's definitely a useful one, too.

What is the meaning of ihr? ›

International Health Regulations (IHR)

Digga is simply word you use when addressing a friend, like “mate”, “dude” or “bro”.

Heimat (pronounced [ˈhaɪmat]) is a German word translating to 'home' or 'homeland'.

/ ˈʃɑt si / PHONETIC RESPELLING. 🎓 College Level. noun Slang. sweetheart; darling.

“Möchten” means “would like to” in English, and “wollen” translates as “to want.” You can learn more about when and how to use these verbs in the following.

Difference in meaning between mögen and möchten

The modal verb in its infinitive form mögen generally means “to like” and this is the meaning you express if you conjugate it with a -g- in its root (mag). However, the conjugation with -chte (möchte) means “to want/would like”.

The modal verbs in German are: können (can, to be able to), müssen (must, to have to), wollen (will, to want to), sollen (should, am to, ought to, to be supposed to), dürfen (may, to be allowed to), mögen (to like, to like to).

This is because 'Genau', which means 'exactly', is one of those interjections people say while having a conversation to signal they are listening and engaged. The way in English we say things like 'uh-huh' and 'yeah' a million times without even noticing it.

In dance and related uses

The slang term 'coochie', popular in the USA is likely to be derived from the German word 'Kuchen', meaning 'a pie or cake'.

Bitte schön! You're welcome.

What is a strong verb German? ›

In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel (ablaut). The majority of the remaining verbs form the past tense by means of a dental suffix (e.g. -ed in English), and are known as weak verbs.

Weak [regular] verbs

These are the verbs with no stem-vowel changes in any tense. They take -te endings in Simple Past and Subjunctive II, and -t endings for their past participles. Zum Beispiel: sagen, sagte, (habe) gesagt. einkaufen, kaufte ein, (habe) eingekauft.

Main verbs, also called full verbs (in German: Vollverben), are those verbs that can form the predicate of a sentence alone, which means as the only verb. In this role, they appear in a finite verb form and determine the meaning of the statement. This function distinguishes them from auxiliary verbs.

The three most common German irregular verbs are, without any doubt, sein (to be), haben (to have) and werden (to become).

There are more than 200 strong and irregular verbs, but just as in English, there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak. As German is a Germanic language, the German verb can be understood historically as a development of the Germanic verb.

In German, there are three helping verbs: haben (to have), sein (to be) and werden (to become). The helping verb haben and sein are used for building the past tenses (present perfect and past perfect tense) and one of the passive voices (Zustandspassiv).

The top 10 regular verbs in English are: want, look, use, work, start, try, ask, need, talk, and help.

In German, you can say “Entschuldigung” or use the more informal abbreviation “'Tschuldigung”. The English word “Sorry” works, too.

What does TeKaMoLo mean German? ›

So ingenious German teachers came up with the abbreviation “tekamolo”, which stands for temporal (time), kausal (reason), modal (manner), lokal (place).

TeKaMoLo is short for the German words temporal, kausal, modal and lokal. The rule basically says that the order of boxes in a German sentence usually is: Te – ka – mo – lo. when – why – how – where.

Auf geht's! Off we go! Let's roll! Still having difficulties with 'Auf geht's!'?

Jawohl meaning

In this context, wohl is used as a modal particle to add stress, so the word jawohl means something along the lines of “certainly” or “yes, definitely”.

aeroplane A plane is a vehicle with wings and one or more engines which can fly.

The past tense, also called simple past or imperfect (Imperfekt or Präteritum in German), is used to express facts and actions that started and ended in the past. It is typically used to tell stories or report past events in written German.

So, the main meaning of mögen is “to like“, hence the past of mögen → ich mochte (without Umlaut dots!) means “I liked”. Möchten does not have an “own” past tense because it is only a verb form of mögen. We use möchten when we want to order/ask for something in a polite way or when we express a wish.

Unlike the Perfekt tense in German, which is mostly used in spoken German and for recent events, the Präteritum (in English "the simple past") is predominantly a written tense denoting events that date further back in the past.

The 5 forms of 'sein' in the present tense are 'bin', 'bist', 'ist', 'sind', and 'seid.

What is an example of sein? ›

Sein + noun = Ich bin Student. – I am a student. Sein + adjective = Er ist groß. – He is tall.

The two most important German verbs are haben (to have) and sein (to be). As in most languages, the verb "to be" is one of the oldest verbs in German, and therefore one of the most irregular.

The Konjunktiv II (subjunctive II) is used to express imagined wishes or conditions. It can also be used to give advice or suggestions, or to make a sentence politer. Forming the subjunctive II: Subjunctive II of werden (will, become) werden, Konj.

Dasein (German pronunciation: [ˈdaːzaɪn]) (sometimes spelled as Da-sein) is the German word for 'existence'. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

As in other tenses, the verb sein is a very irregular strong verb since the imperfect forms seem to have no relation to the infinitive form of the verb: ich war, du warst, er/sie/es war, wir waren, ihr wart, sie/Sie waren.

In the perfect tense we use the auxiliary verbs sein (to be) and haben (to have). Tim ist nach Hannover gefahren. Tim has gone to Hannover.

In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel (ablaut). The majority of the remaining verbs form the past tense by means of a dental suffix (e.g. -ed in English), and are known as weak verbs.