The cord connecting nouns and verbs. The connection cord, concord. In English, you have the same thing. I am, you are, she is. Different persons, different verb forms. Let us have a look at German concord.
German Concord
The verb sein
The verb to be is the verbs we know in English as am, is are, was and were. In German in the present tense we use:
ich bin – I am.
du bist – You (singular) are.
sie/er/es ist – She/he/it is.
wir/sie/Sie sind – We/they/you (formal) are.
ihr seid – You (plural) are.
Conjugations
Most other verbs are conjugated to have concord with the noun. We use the following suffixes:
ich trinke – I drink
du trinkst – You (singular) drink
sie/er/es/ihr trinkt – she/he/it drinks and you (plural) drink
wir/Sie/sie trinken – we/you (formal)/they drink
Verb Types
There are multiple verb types in German. The Infinitive, the past and present participles as well as strong, weak and irregular verbs. I want to discuss the strong and weak ones here, I will later post something on the others.
The strong and weak verbs are the only ones conjugated as mentioned above. The rest changes in unpredictable ways.
The difference between strong and weak verbs is stem changes. Weak verbs don’t have stem changes. Strong verbs’ stems change and have to be learned by heart. These changes usually occur in the past tense forms of the verb, but not necessarily. So, the best idea is to find yourself a list and to start learning. I really like the list that Vistawide uploaded.
I hope that you can now connect nouns and verbs with the correct cord.
xoxo,
Charlé
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