57. Genuine Irregular Verbs (ii)

57.  German Irregular Verbs (ii)  (See Quiztests 194-195)

Last time we looked at verbs ending in -den, -ten, -men and -nen. These verbs are not true irregular verbs. An irregular verb will have a change in the stem vowel and essentially, other than sein and haben, there are 3 forms of the verb in the Present Tense that are considered irregular. We will look at the first of these today and and they involve a change from a to ä in the du and er, sie, es forms, for it is here and only here that a change will take place. Let's compare them to a regular verb...

Regular Verb

ich           mache

du            machst

er, sie, es  macht

wir           machen

ihr            macht

Sie           machen

sie            machen

Irregular  Verb   a  -  ä  change    (fahren =  to travel,  ride,  drive)

ich            fahre

du             fährst

er, sie es    fährt

wir           fahren

ihr            fahrt

Sie           fahren

sie            fahren

You will notice that there is no change in the endings of the verb - it is all down to the vowel change in the du  and  er, sie,  es  forms  vowel change. Other common verbs that work in a similar fashion are...

backen         bake

laufen           run ( Umlaut is on the a  -  äu)

schlafen        sleep

fangen          catch

empfangen   receive

anfangen      begin

laden            load

einladen       invite

fallen            fall

tragen           carry, wear

waschen       wash  (du form ... wäscht,  er form  the same)

wachsen       grow  (du form ... wächst, er form the same)

raten             advise (du form ... rätst,  er form rät)

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