Irregular verbs and regular verbs. That’s a mouthful but that is what we trying to learn in class today. Irregular verbs or strong verbs as some people call them are different from the regular verbs or ‘weak verbs. However the issue is that for people who are learning German as a new language, find it usually hard to learn these irregular verbs for their stem vowel in the past tense (Präteritum) and perfect tense changes.

For instance take the verb Machen. In its infitinitve form it is mach-en, past tense –mach-te and as a participle perfekt it is ge-mach-t. Notice how the stem mach remains the same and is consistent. This folks is your regular verb in german. Now if you take a look at the verb gehen. In its infinitive form it is gehen, past tense- ging and as a participle perfekt it is gegangen. Notice how here the stem is completely different.  German I’ve come to realize can often be overwhelming at times but you need to remember to breathe in and out, practice a lot and eventually it will come to you. It’s almost like how you don’t think when you speak in your native language, you don’t think about the tenses of verbs and nouns individually and then put it together. It all just comes together without thinking. With practice I believe, that is the key to cracking this Fremdsprachen.

Elza