Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly conjugate regular verbs in the present tense and explain the special functions of the present tense in German.

Lesson Explanation

Regular verbs are conjugated in the present tense by removing the -en ending from the infinitive and attaching the corresponding personal ending, shown here with spielen (to play): ich spiele, du spielst, er/sie/es spielt, wir spielen, ihr spielt, sie spielen.

A genuinely important German feature: the present tense is very often also used for actions that would express the future in English — especially when a time expression already makes the future clear: Ich fahre morgen nach Berlin. (I’m going to Berlin tomorrow — present tense, even though the action lies in the future, since “morgen” already makes this clear). The actual future tense (Part 4, Lesson 4) is often used only for extra emphasis or for predictions with no time expression.

Unlike English, German has no separate progressive form (like the English “-ing”): the simple present covers both general facts and actions happening right now: Ich arbeite. can mean both “I work (generally, as a profession)” and “I am working (right now)” — context alone clarifies the exact meaning, without any change to the verb form.

Some verbs with the stem vowel e or a show a vowel change in the 2nd and 3rd person singular: sprechen → du sprichst, er spricht (e → i), fahren → du fährst, er fährt (a → ä) — this change affects only these two persons, not the other four.

Practice Questions