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question Kommt ihr ?
Nein! Aber du __?__ ! answer

conjugation means to put verbs in the correct form

For example in English we put an 's' at the end if the subject is in 3rd person singular.

see - sees, go - goes sleep - sleeps etc.

Imagine someone saying: 'I goes to town.' Would you understand him? It's more likely that you would correct him, because the form of the verb 'to go' is wrong.

That's what it's all about and in German (as in most languages) there's a little more to consider than just the 's'.

Here come the rules corresponding with the exercise you chose above.

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regular conjugation in German

This type of verbs is usually called "schwache Verben" .

german regular verbs present

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irregular conjugation in German

This type of verbs is usually called "starke Verben" . A small but very important group.

german irregular verbs present

notice: irregular verbs ending on '–ten', don’t get an extra '–et' (different from regular verbs)

german irregular verbs present

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verbs in this exercise are conjugated regularly or irregularly

You need to know whether the verb is regular or irregular.

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reflexive verbs in German

Reflexive means: The verb comes always with the reflexive pronoun of the subject. Normally it's the accusative pronoun, but there are also some which come with the dative pronoun.
The verb itself is conjugated the same way as shown above. It might be regular or irregular. The difference to non reflexive verbs is the pronoun in the right column
In German we often use reflexive verbs.

reflexive pronouns accusative

german reflexive verbs accusative

The reflexive pronoun dative differs only in the 1st and 2nd person singular.

german reflexive verbs dativ

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separable verbs in German

Separable verbs are in fact a challenge.
They consist of a combination of a prefix (a preposition) and a verb.
Just to give you an idea of how important they are, here comes a table which shows some verbs and their combination with a prefix. Some of this new formed verbs change their meaning completely as for example 'aufhören' which means 'to stop doing something', but normally the meaning is closely related to the non separable form.

german separable verbs

This list is not complete. Other separable prefixes are: "bei-, ein-, gegen-, fern-, über-, unter-, um-

Separable verbs can be regular or irregular. The conjugation is the same as in the exercises above. The difference to non separable verbs is that the prefix has to be at the end of the sentence if it's the conjugated verb in a main clause.
It's not separated
a) if it's in a secondary clause or
b) if it's the non finite part in a complex predicate.
To illustrate the rule, let us compare.

In a main clause the verb is separated.

In a secondary clause the verb is not separated.

As non finite part in a complex predicate the verb is not separated.

Example in the future tense.

Example with a modal verb, which is very commonly used.
This is an example for what we practice in this exercises

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perfect with 'sein'

A significant difference is, that in German some verbs form the perfect tense with the auxiliary verb 'sein'. The most important verbs of this group are about 15 words, that describe a movement, like:
kommen, gehen, fahren, laufen, rennen, bleiben, fliegen...
You have to learn them.

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How to form the participle

We have two groups:

participles with an added 'ge'

german regular verbs participle german irregular verbs participle german separable verbs participle

participles without 'ge'

german verbs participle on -ieren german verbs not separable

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German simple past tense, 'Präteritum'

How do we use the simple past tense?

There is no difference in meaning between the simple past tense and perfect tense in German. Theoretically, you can speak proper German, without using the simple past tense. But the simple past tense is used and we can't ignore it. I'll try to set up an approximate rule that describes when we use what form.

We use the simple past tense

The forms of the simple past tense

In the simple past tense, we have a third conjugation group besides regular and irregular verbs, named mixed conjugation. In this group are about 40 relevant verbs that are regular in present tense but irregular in simple past tense. The forms are sometimes very special. That's why we have to learn each of them.

german regular verbs past tense

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