The present tense is used to describe actions and situations in the present time. It can be listed as:

To talk about things that are happening right now:

To talk about habits:

To talk about general truths:

To talk about the future:

To give instructions and narrate something:

In order to conjugate verbs in the present tense, you need to pay attention to the subjects. The subject will determine the "ending" of the verb. The ending will be added to the "verb stem".

The stem is derived from the infinitive form of the verb. In order to find the verb stem, you should remove the "en" from the end of the infinitive form of the verb.

The basic structure for conjugating most German verbs in the present tense is:
Verb stem + Personal ending
Now, let's look at the different types of verbs that use this formula. These can be listed as follows:

The table below shows the endings for weak verbs:

lernen (to learn) → lern (stem)

kaufen (to buy) → Kauf (stem)

Conjugation for strong verbs is different from weak verbs, since they don't follow the same rules. The stem vowel usually changes in strong verbs.

"Sein" and "haben" are the two most important verbs in German. They are categorized as irregular verbs and their conjugations must be memorized.

The table below shows the conjugated form of "sein" and "haben":

This section explains the word order rules in German sentences for the following:

In a standard statement, the conjugated verb always comes second.

In yes/no questions, the verb belongs to the first position and is followed by the subject.

You can use "nicht" to negate verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns that have a definite article (der, die, das). Where you place "nicht" depends on what you want to negate.

If you want to negate the main verb or the whole sentence: Place "nicht" at the end of the sentence.