Strutz - 501 German Verbs

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Foreword

The verb is a very important part of speech; it denotes action or state of being. The noted American historian and poet Carl Sandburg once declared that the Civil War was fought over a verb, namely, whether it was correct to say The United States is or The United States are .

For each of the 501 verbs listed in this book, the student will find the principal parts of each verb at the top of the page. The principal parts consist of:

the Infinitive

the third person singular of the Past Tense

the Past Participle (preceded by ist for sein verbs)

the third person singular of the Present Tense

These are the basic forms of the verb and should be memorized, especially in the case of the irregular or strong verbs, that is verbs that change the stem vowel of the Infinitive to form the Past Tense and whose Past Participle ends in en . More than one-half of the verbs in this book are strong or irregular verbs.

Weak or regular verbs do not change the stem vowel of the Infinitive to form the Past Tense but merely add the ending te (plus personal endings in the second person singular and the three persons of the plural). Past Participles of weak verbs end in t .

Both English and German have strong and weak verbs.

With the exception of a small group of verbs called irregular weak verbs (in some texts called mixed verbs or hybridssee ), verbs in German are either weak or strong. The strong or irregular verbs are not as difficult to learn as it might seem, if it is remembered that most of them can be classified into seven major groups. For example, the verbs bleiben , leihen , meiden , preisen , reiben , scheiden , scheinen , schreien , schweigen , steigen , treiben , verzeihen , weisen all follow the same pattern as schreiben in their principal parts:

schreiben , schrieb , geschrieben , schreibt

There are six other major groupings (the Ablautsreihen) of the strong verbs with which you should familiarize yourself. You will then agree that the English author, H. H. Munro (Saki), exaggerated the difficulty of German verbs when, in his story Tobermory, he told of a professor who had to flee England after a cat, which he had trained to talk, compromised the weekend guests at an English manor house by revealing their secrets which it (the cat) had overheard. A few weeks thereafter, the newspapers reported that the professor had been found dead in the Dresden Zoo in Germany. Upon hearing this news, one of the guests, who had been embarrassed by the activities of the professor and his remarkable cat, commented that it served the professor right if he was trying to teach the poor animals those horrible German irregular verbs.

Below the principal parts, you will find the Imperative or Command Form. Since there are three ways of saying you in German ( du , ihr , and Sie ), there are thus three ways of giving commands to people. The first form of the Imperative is the du or familiar singular form which ends in e in most cases, although this e is frequently dropped in colloquial speech. The second form is the ihr or Familiar Plural Imperative. It is exactly the same as the ihr form (second person plural) of the Present Tense. The polite or Sie Imperative (called in some texts the Conventional or Formal Imperative) is simply the infinitive plus Sie , except for the imperative of sein , which is seien Sie!

The fully conjugated forms of the six tenses of the Indicative will be found on the left-hand side of each page. These six tenses state a fact, or, in their interrogative (question) form, ask a question about a fact. You should refer to a grammar for more detailed information concerning the use of these tenses: the idiomatic use of the Present for the Future; the use of the Present Perfect in colloquial speech and in non-connected narratives where English uses the past; the Future and Future Perfect used idiomatically to express probability; the very important matter of sein and intransitive verbs. See also .

The right-hand side of each page is devoted to the tenses of the Subjunctive mood, which is used to denote unreality, possibility, doubt in the mind of the speaker. For information concerning the use of the Subjunctive (indirect discourse; the use of the Past Subjunctive or Present Subjunctive II for the Conditional), you should also consult a grammar and .

There are four Times in the Subjunctive: Present, Past, Future, and Future Perfect time. Each of the Times has a primary and secondary form (indicated by I and II in many grammars). This more recent classification of the forms of the Subjunctive corresponds better to its actual use. However, since some grammars still use the traditional names for the tenses of the Subjunctive (which parallel the names for the tenses of the Indicative), they have been given in parentheses. The form ginge , for example, may be called the Imperfect or Past Subjunctive of gehen in some books. In most grammars published today, however, it will be called the Present Subjunctive Secondary (II) or General Subjunctive. The student will find ginge listed in this book under Subjunctive, Present Time, Secondary. The alternate designation Imperfect Subjunctive is also given in parentheses.

The Present Participle of the verb (that is, dancing dolls, flying saucers, singing dogs) has been omitted, since in almost all cases it merely adds a d to the infinitive. The student should remember that the Present Participle is used only adjectivally (as in the above examples) or adverbially. Verbal nouns are expressed in German by the infinitive: das Tanzen dancing ; das Fliegen flying ; das Singen singing .

German verbs can often be combined with prefixes. The matter of prefixes is of great importance. The index therefore devotes considerable attention to them, although, of necessity, it is by no means complete in its listings of verbs that can be combined with prefixes. There are three groups of prefixes: the separable, inseparable, and doubtful prefixes.

This new edition of 501 GERMAN VERBS has many features that should be very useful to you in studying German. The new sections ,) that provides hands-on instruction in correct verb usage.

This new edition features a listing of 55 essential verbs. For many of those verbs, a sampling of major related prefix verbs is also given, along with sentences illustrating their meaning. Separable prefix verbs are listed first, followed by inseparable prefix verbs. A few verbs have a separable and an inseparable prefix verb that are written similarly, though pronounced differently. See the discussion of . Understanding prefix verbs, their relationship to the main verb, and formal differences in using them is a difficult yet extremely important topic in studying German and essential for vocabulary building. Prefixes often express shades of meaning of the basic verb and can make that meaning more precise. In addition to those cited, many other verbs have prefix verbs related to them. By studying the examples given, you will gain insight into how prefix verbs work in general.