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German modal verbs – Past, present, & future

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor

Modal verbs express an attitude about an action expressed in the sentence. German has six modal verbs. Modal verbs with principal parts Meanings (“modes”) dürfen, (darf), durfte, gedurft to be allowed to, may (permission) können, (kann), konnte, gekonnt to be able…

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Posted in German Grammar Guide, Verbs Tagged with: , , ,

The present tense of German verbs

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor

German has only one present tense. It is the equivalent of three possible forms in English. ich sage I say I am saying I do say In addition, the German present tense is often used, frequently with specific adverbials of time,…

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Posted in German Grammar Guide, Verbs Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Introduction to German verbs

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor
Intro to German verbs

What are verbs? Verbs are words that express actions, processes, or states of being. The verb form that you will find in your vocabulary list and in dictionaries is called the infinitive. While in English the infinitive of a verb…

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Posted in German Grammar Guide, Verbs Tagged with:

Compound nouns in German

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor — 11 Comments ↓

Today a student asked me “How do you turn a noun into an adjective in German?” He wanted to say “banana bread” and “orange juice”. The answer is that German doesn’t form an adjective at all, but instead forms a…

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Posted in Conjunctions, German Language, Nouns, Quizzes, Verbs, Vocabulary Tagged with: , ,

Top German verbs: Scavenger hunt

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor — 7 Comments ↓

Top German verbs are from Tschirner & Jones’ Frequency Dictionary of German I posted a list of the top 100 German verbs a while back. It’s time to return to that list and do some more work with German verbs. Every…

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Posted in German Language, Grammar, Teaching German, Verbs, Vocabulary Tagged with:

Top 100 German verbs

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor — 58 Comments ↓
Top 100 German verbs

This verb list comes from Randall Jones & Erwin Tschirner’s A Frequency Dictionary of German. Core Vocabulary for Learners, which lists the 4034 (!) most commonly used words in German. We’ll be doing lots of fun things with this list with…

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Posted in Lists and Charts, Resources, Teaching German, Verbs, Vocabulary Tagged with: , ,

studieren vs lernen

Posted on by TheGermanProfessor — 12 Comments ↓

In English, “to study” means to learn, read, memorize, practice, and reflect on a subject. In German, the verb lernen is used to talk about these learning activities. Wir lernen Deutsch. We are learning German. (i.e. as a general activity:…

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Posted in German Language, Verbs, Vocabulary Tagged with: , , ,
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