To have or to be: Conjugations

German and English share a common ancestry, and as such there are many similar things about the two languages that make learning one from the other easier than it could otherwise be. This shared root branched off many years ago though, so for all the similarities there are also a number of differences some of them really quite stark.

One of the main differences is the level of conjugation of the verbs in the language. Conjugation is just a fancy name for changing the end of a verb (a doing word such as 'go' or 'play') depending on what is 'doing' the verb. So looking at 'play' as an example; in English we would say:

• I play
• You play
• He/She/It plays
• They play
• We play

So if we are talking in the third person singular (He/She/It) we add an 's' to the end of the verb to make the verb match the noun. In German the concept is the same but there are more endings, and instead of simply adding letters to the infinitive (The fancy name for the verb in it's original form, in English this will strictly include the word 'to' as in 'to play') you must first take some letters off. In German the way to say 'to play' is 'spielen' and it is conjugated like so:

• Ich spiele
• Du spielst
• Er/sie/es spielt
• Sie spielen
• Wir Spielen
• Ihr Spielt

So as you can see it's a little more complicated, but it's really not so bad. The majority of verbs that I have seen so far in German end in 'en' and of those, most follow this pattern. There are though one or two more awkward ones and two in particular that you will use a lot. The verbs 'to have' (haben) and 'to be' (sein).

Let's look at 'haben' first:

Ich habe	I have
Du hast	You have
Sie haben	You have (formal)
Er hat	He has
Sie hat	She has
Es hat	It has
Ihr habt	You have (plural)
Wir haben	We have
Sie haben	They have

It's a little weird, but not too out there. If you can remember the rules from the standard conjugations then the endings will at least work as a prod to the correct answer, even if they don't get you all the way there. 

What about the verb 'to be'?:

• I am
• You are
• He/she/it is
• We are
• They are

'Wait a second, that's not German!' I hear you cry. Well, no it isn't, it's clearly English, but I wanted to draw your attention to how odd it would look if it was a foreign language. I mean they all in essence provide the same meaning, but the form completely changes depending on who or what you are talking about. Hopefully with that in mind, the German equivalent won't be so scary. 

ich bin	I am
du bist	You are
Sie sind	You are (formal)
er ist	He is
sie ist	She is
es ist	It is
Ihr seid	You are (plural)
wir sind	We are
sie sind	They are

So, there you have it, haben and sein, to have and to be. Once you have learned these your German journey (like mine) will be well underway! Well kinda... I'll explain one of the things that's causing me a little more grief in my next post.