The present tense of German verbs

In addition, the German present tense is often used, frequently with specific adverbials of time, to express future time.

Regular verbs

The present tense is one of two verb tenses in German that consist of finite forms. This means that the verb itself is inflected to provide all of the grammatical information necessary to understand its role in the sentence.

The German present tense is usually formed by dropping the –en or –n from the infinitive and adding personal endings (-e, -(e)st, (e)t, –en, -(e)t, –en) to the remaining infinitive stem. Each of the four examples below represent regular verb conjugation in the present tense. The present tense forms of gehen are regular. The other three verbs demonstrate slight variations you should be aware of. These are elucidated below

The variations represented in the chart above:

sitzen: If the infinitive stem ends in –s, –ß, –x, or –z, the  s of the du-ending is omitted:

finden: If the infinitive stem ends in –d or –t, or if it ends in -m or –n preceded by a consonant other than l or r, to facilitate pronunciation an e is inserted between the infinitive stem and personal ending in the du, er/sie/es, and ihr forms.

handeln: If the infinitive ends in just –n rather than –en, then the personal ending of the wir and Sie/sie forms is simply –n. In speech, sometimes the e in the ich-form is omitted.

Stem-changing verbs

Some strong verbs having a, au, or e in their infinitive stems undergo stem-vowel changes in the du and er/sie/es-forms. There are four types of stem changes: a to ä, au to äu, e to i, and e to ie.

Note these variations:

Unlike regular verbs, stem-changing verbs whose stems end in -d or -t do not add an additional e before the personal -st or -t ending:

And some stem-changing verbs whose stems end in -d or -t do not add the -et personal ending in the er/sie/es-form at all.

Like regular verbs, stem-changing verbs whose stems end in –s or –ß drop the s in the du-form –st personal ending:

Other irregular verbs

A small number of very common verbs have irregularities that deviate from the German present tense patterns above. Because their forms are unpredictable and because they are used so frequently, they should be memorized.

Modal verbs

Modal verbs are a special category of verbs in German. There are six modal verbs and they all follow a similar pattern of irregularity: ich-, du-, and er/sie/es-forms have a stem change (except for sollen), and in the ich– and er/sie/es-forms, the regular personal endings are omitted.

Modal verbs are used to express an attitude about an action. They are typically used in combination with another verb, in which case the modal verb is conjugated and the other verb appears at the end of the sentence in the infinitive form.

Separable prefix verbs