German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut).
The most common permanent prefixes found in German are ver-, ge-, be-, er-, ent- (or emp-), and zer-.
(elliptical) If one wants to express that they suddenly see a bird (not an airplane); Both sentences are correct but they have different focus.
This can be viewed as a table: Native adverbs, like nicht, leider or gerne, are placed before the innermost verb (see Compound infinitives).
A complex infinitive cannot be turned into passive form, with an accusative object, for obvious reasons.
is transitive and takes haben, but I have driven to Germany (Ich bin nach Deutschland gefahren.)
is intransitive and takes sein because of the position change, even though the verb, fahren, is identical.
Some modal verbs in German are: können, dürfen, müssen, brauchen, wollen, mögen, lassen.
The meaning of must not is conveyed in German with the verb dürfen; "I must not" is therefore translated as ich darf nicht.
The ACI is formed by placing a bare infinitive after the main verb, and then inserting an accusative object between them.
To create the basic form of a present participle, you attach the suffix -d to the infinitive of the verb.
[opinion] Instead of the infinitive, one uses the present participle, and then declines it corresponding to gender, number, case and article of the nominal phrase.
In the explicitly feminine form a second syllable er is omitted, if the infinitive ends on ern or eren.
[citation needed] This form is hard to build for complex infinitives, therefore it is unusual: or even On the other hand, this form is often used in fun or mocking expressions, because the imputed behaviour that is content of the mocking can be merged into a single word.
Examples are: Toiletten-Tief-Taucher ("toilet deep diver", which is an alliteration in German), or Mutterficker ("motherfucker").
A whole range of these expressions aim at supposedly weak or conformist behaviour, such as Ampel-bei-Rot-Stehenbleiber ("traffic-lights-on-red-stopper"), Warmduscher ("warm-showerer"), Unterhosen-Wechsler ("underpants changer"), or Schattenparker ("in the shadow parker").
The bare infinitive, when used as a noun, has no plural (or if it does it is invariable, i.e. identical to the singular), and its gender is neuter.
While German gerunds formerly served the same function as they do in English, they now have concrete, usually technical meanings.
Sometimes the German infinitive and gerund convey the same meaning, but this is rare (e.g. das Laugen – die Laugung, both ‘leaching, lixiviation’; das Kleben – die Klebung, both ‘chemically bonding, adhering’); usually only the infinitive carries the same meaning as an English gerund.
Compare: One type of deverbative noun is formed by adding -erei (-lerei or -(er)ei) and (sometimes) has a slightly derogatory meaning.
The grammatically dependent implication (i.e. independent of context, speech, and syntax) of disapproval for this type of deverbative is rather weak, though present.
On the other hand, any positive implication from the context or speech will free the deverbative from any disapproval.
also Metzgerei, Fleischerei ‘butcher’s shop’, Malerei (a business of professional painters (of rooms and buildings)) are not derived from verbs.
Most times, this noun indicates slightly more disapproval than the other one (depending in the same way on context, speech etc.).
For example: Das stundenlange Herumgefahre im Bus geht mir total auf die Nerven.
Conjugation includes three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), three moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive), and two simple tenses (present and Preterite).
English speakers should note that German tenses do not carry aspect information.
The previous sentence can be written - Das Mädchen geht gerade zur Schule.
In colloquial spoken German, in particular in the Rhineland and Ruhr areas, a present progressive tense does exist and is known as the rheinische Verlaufsform.
This is frequent in the 2nd person singular, where the verb ending -st and the pronoun du ("you") are contracted into -ste [-stə].