One tense, three English ideas

A single German present-tense verb can be translated three ways in English. There is no separate word for "am/do":

• Ich spiele Tennis. → I play tennis.
• Ich spiele Tennis. → I am playing tennis.
• Ja, ich spiele Tennis. → I do play tennis.

Why this matters: don't try to build a continuous tense with an extra verb. German has no "am ...-ing" — the plain present already carries all three meanings.

The regular endings

Take the infinitive (e.g. spielen, to play), remove -en to get the stem spiel-, and add the endings:

Same pattern for wohnen (to live), machen (to do/make), hören (to listen), kaufen (to buy). Sie with a capital S is the polite "you" and takes the -en form, just like "they".

Pick the ending

Your turn — the "wir" form

When the stem needs an extra -e-

Two neat rules keep verbs pronounceable:

• Stem ends in -t or -d → add an extra -e- before st and t: arbeiten → du arbeitest, er arbeitet (to work); likewise finden → du findest.
• Stem ends in -s, -ß or -z → the du form adds only -t (the s is already there): heißen → du heißt (to be called), tanzen → du tanzt.

Careful with ß: du heißt keeps its ß — never write heisst or heißst.

The vowel flips in du and er

Many common verbs change their stem vowel — but only in the du and er/sie/es forms. Everywhere else they're regular:

Two vowel shifts to know: a → ä (fahren, schlafen, tragen) and e → i / ie (geben → gibt, lesen → liest, sehen → sieht). The wir and ihr forms never change.

Spot the vowel change

Your turn — a strong verb

The high-frequency ones

Learn these er/sie/es forms cold — they appear constantly when you talk about food, media and daily life:

nehmen is the odd one: it changes both vowel and consonant — er nimmt (double m, no h). Learn it as a one-off.

Pick the correct form

sein and haben

These two are so common — and so irregular — that Cambridge expects the full present tense of each. Learn them by heart:

Age uses sein: German says Ich bin 15 Jahre alt ("I am 15") — with sein, not haben. haben is for possessions: Ich habe einen Hund.

sein or haben?

Your turn — haben

Strong or regular?

Decide whether each verb changes its vowel in the er-form, or stays regular.

Separable verbs

Some verbs have a prefix that breaks off in a main clause. The verb is conjugated in second position, and the prefix jumps to the very end:

• fernsehen → Ich sehe abends fern. — I watch TV in the evening.
• einkaufen → Wir kaufen im Supermarkt ein. — We shop in the supermarket.
• mitkommen → Kommst du mit? — Are you coming along?

Spot them by the prefix: auf-, ein-, mit-, an-, aus-, fern-, zu-. In the dictionary the verb is written joined (aufstehen), but in a sentence it splits.

Where does the prefix go?

Your turn — er spricht

Match the infinitive to its "er" form

Tap an infinitive on the left, then tap its er/sie/es form on the right.

The present does more than "now"

German uses the plain present in two places where English uses something else:

• The near future. With a time word, the present covers "will/going to": Morgen spiele ich Tennis. — Tomorrow I'll play tennis.
• "Since / for" with seit. An action still going on stays in the present: Ich lerne seit zwei Jahren Deutsch. — I have been learning German for two years.

Trap: "I have been learning" feels like a past tense in English, but German keeps it present because you are still learning now. seit also triggers the dative (more in cluster 4).

Reading "seit"

Your turn — a separable verb

Your present-tense toolkit

This is the tense every other cluster builds on. Press Finish to see your score.