Conjugations

In German, same as in English, the form of a verb will change, depending on who is performing the action. That’s what we call conjugation. There’s one difference though: In German, verbs are shifting and changing way more often! I’ll give you a table along with two examples:

Ich gehe zur Schule. - I go to school.

Er geht zur Schule. - He goes to school.

 

      p.s. = person singular; p.p. = person plural

So while there are 2 different English forms to remember, there are 5 German ones. This word still looks pretty regular. You always have the "geh" part and then the ending of it changes. You will probably not find it hard to see that all those words are related since the "root"* always stays the same. (since they're all the same word).
*The first part that doesn't change is the "root" of the word.

When looking a word up in a dictionary, always go for the infinitive. I'm pretty sure you know that already, but many people make this mistake and end up complaining why their dictionary doesn't contain the word "geht".

Almost all infinitives are formed by adding "en" to the root.
So here it works like this: geh + en = gehen
Voila, that's our infinitive! There are exceptions where it doesn't work though, but most times you will be safe.

There's one exception that I want to show you right away because it's just... so important.




This one is as irregular as it gets. You will have to use it all the time, so it's really worth learning it. This is one of the things you should know so well that you won't even have to think about it for a second. Believe me, this will automatically eliminate a big source of frustration and is going to make your life easier. (and it will also make the world a better place... hopefully)

For additional tables you can either go to IKEA or check out the list of Conjugations that I made. Feel free to send me comments and wishes for verbs which you want to be conjugated.




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