German has 8 personal pronouns: ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, sie, Sie; each pronoun takes a different verb form, which can be quite confusing if you don't understand them well. But don't worry: if you master the rules below, conjugating verbs for each person in the present tense (Präsens) is as easy as „pie“.

A German verb consists of 2 parts:

Verbstamm (verb stem) + verb ending

E.g.: In the verb gehen: Verbstamm (geh) + verb ending (en)

Most verbs end in –en, a few in –n:

E.g.: sammeln: Verstamm (sammel) + verb ending (n)

When conjugating, the Verstamm stays the same and the verb ending changes. Verbs are conjugated with the endings that correspond to each personal pronoun:

However, pay attention to the following groups of verbs:

1) Verbs whose stem ends in –s, -ß, -z:

Special case: only with du, you add just –t to the verb ending.

VD: heißen heißt

2) Verbs whose stem ends in –t, -d, -chn,..

Special case: with du and er/sie/es, you need to add –e before adding the ending that corresponds to the person.

E.g.: reden → du: redest, er/sie/es: redet

3) Verbs whose stem contains a, e:

When conjugating these verbs, pay special attention to du and er/sie/e in certain cases:

a -> ä (fangen → du: fängst, es/ sie/ es: fängst)

e -> ie or i (nehmen → du: nimmst, er/ sie/ es: nimmt)

4) Irregular verbs:

Just as English has irregular verbs, so does German. These verbs follow no conjugation rule, because during conjugation the stem changes and the verb becomes a completely new form. Therefore you have to memorize the following verbs:

• Auxiliary verbs Hilfsverben: sein, haben, werden:

• Modal verbs Modalverben: müssen, können, mögen, wollen, sollen, dürfen:

• Special verb: wissen

5) Separable verbs (trennbare Verben)

Separable verbs are divided into two parts: the prefix and the base verb.

Example: ankommen consists of the prefix an and the base verb kommen

In the present tense, the prefix is separated from the verb and placed at the end of the sentence, while the base verb takes the 2nd position and follows the conjugation rules mentioned above.

Example: Der Zug kommt um 19Uhr an.

The prefix an- is separated and placed at the end of the sentence, and the base verb kommen is conjugated in the 3rd person singular (Verbstamm + t) as kommt.

!!! Note: You need to distinguish separable verbs from inseparable verbs. Separable verbs usually contain the prefixes ab-, auf-, ein-, mit-, vor-, an-, aus-, zu-,.....