Lessons from the Top German Verbs list

Today I put up a page on the 100 most commonly used German verbs. We’ll do lots of fun and useful things with this list — and the 500 most common German words list — in the coming days and weeks.

Since every sentence has a predicate — i.e., verb parts — and since the predicate largely determines the structure of each sentence and what other elements the sentence contains, any insights into the function and usage of verbs can contribute much to the understanding of the language. Let’s take a closer look at the verb list and see how it can serve as a useful guide in learning German.

The top 3 German verbs are not only words with common meanings in their own right but they also serve as auxiliary verbs in German. (1) sein (to be) and (2) haben (to have) are both used as auxiliary verbs in forming the perfect tenses, and (3) werden (to become) is used as an auxiliary in forming the future tenses and the passive voice.

The next two verbs are modal verbs: (4) können (can, to be able to) and (5) müssen (must, to have to). In fact, all 6 German modal verbs are in the top 30. The others are: (10) sollen (should, ought to), (11) wollen (to want), (24) dürfen (may, to be allowed) and (28) mögen (to like). Like the auxiliary verbs, modal verbs are almost always used in combination with other verbs in forming the predicate in a sentence.

The popularity of these 9 verbs — the auxiliaries and the modal verbs — tells us that not only knowing these verbs but also knowing how to make sense of compound tenses and structures will be useful in making sense of German.

Next, let’s look at verb patterns. Only 3 weak verbs — verbs that follow regular and predictable conjugation patterns in every verb tense — are in the top 25 verbs. Of the top 100, 37 of the verbs are weak. For these verbs, only the infinitive needs to be learned. All tenses and moods are based on the infinitive stem. The weak verbs can thus be easily recognized in any tense or mood.

This means that the majority of the verbs — 63 of them to be exact — are strong or irregular (mixed) verbs — verbs with unpredictable stem changes across verb tenses and moods. In fact, many of the most anomalous German verbs occur in the top 100. Because these verbs occur so frequently, it is advisable to learn their various forms. Being able to recognize the principle parts of irregular verbs is essential to understanding them in a sentence.

Here are those 63 irregular verbs with their principle parts. They are in the order of frequency except where verbs share common stems, in which case they are grouped together.

* schaffen is a weak verb when it means to manage (to do something).

Does the Top 100 German verbs list reveal anything else about the language? What do you see?