Conjugating German Verbs

In German, the dictionary shows each verb in its infinitive form. The infinitive form is the form that has no finite reference to person or number. The equivalent is English is the “to + verb” form, e.g. “to play”.

• The German verb that means, “to play” is cited in the dictionary as spielen.

There are also finite forms of verbs. In English the finite forms of the verb “to play” are the verb “plays”, as in “he plays every day”, “play”, as in “they play every day”, and “played”, as in “he played every day”.

In German, there are more finite forms of verbs than in English. However, they are not difficult to learn.

German verbs change their forms according to the person and number of the subject. To examine this, let us look at a sentence using the verb spielen, in the present tense.

• Ich spiele jeden Tag. I play every day.

In this sentence, ich(“I”) is the subject, and spiele (“play”) is the verb. You can see in the table below how the form of spielen changes to reflect the person and number of the subject.