56. German Regular Verbs in The Present Tense

56.  German Regular Verbs  in The Present Tense 

Pronouns replace nouns and in so doing make language faster. Using the noun over and over again becomes repetitive and slower so pronouns are more efficient. In English, for example, we would replace the lady with she,  the man with he, and  the book with it. Today we will look at the singular pronouns only and how they work with German verbs. These pronouns involve one person only.

Basically pronouns are categorised into 1st person ( I ), 2nd person ( you ) and 3rd person ( he, she or it ). They are usually presented  in table form in text books and look like this:

1    ich                =      I

2    du                 =      you

3    er   sie   es     =      he   she   it

We have seen what we call the infinitive of German verbs before ( See Post 16). Here we saw how German infinitives ( 'to' form of verb or sometimes called the 'dictionary' form) end in either en or n 

(trinken, kommen, flüstern = whisper etc). The first part of the verb minus the ending: -  trink,  komm,  flüster is known as the stem.  For each different pronoun, there are 3 different endings attached to the stem & these are:

1    ich   trink e     =     I drink,   do drink,  am drinking  (German has only the ONE form of the verb)

2    du   trink  st     =     you drink,  do drink,  are drinking

3    er    trink  t       =     he drinks,    does drink,  is drinking
      sie   trink  t       =     she drinks,  does drink,  is drinking
      es    trink  t       =     it drinks,     does drink,  is drinking

Das Schaf  trinkt  Wasser  =  the sheep drinks, does drink or is drinking water is replaced by ...........  Es  trinkt  Wasser  =  It drinks,  does drink,  is drinking ( English has 3 forms of Present Tense)
Die Dame trinkt Wein = the lady drinks, does drink, is drinking wine .. replaced by
Sie trinkt Wein = she drinks wine,  does drink wine,  is drinking wine
Der Mann trinkt Bier = the man drinks,  does drink,  is drinking beer ... replaced by
Er trinkt Bier = He drinks, does drink, is drinking beer

More next time …

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