The present tense describes current situations, habits and often future events when a time expression makes the timing clear.

der Park
der Abend
das Café
der Samstag
das Kino

The idea

Regular verbs use the endings e, st, t, en, t, en. Some stems need an extra e, as in du wartest; irregular verbs need separate practice.

Patterns to compare
Form / MusterBeispiel / Gegensatz
ichlerne
dulernst
er / sie / eslernt
wir / sie / Sielernen
ihrlernt

Examples

  • Ich wohne am Park.
  • Du lernst jeden Abend.
  • Sie arbeitet im Café.
  • Wir spielen am Samstag.
  • Ihr wartet vor dem Kino.
  • Morgen fahre ich nach Bonn.

Read-aloud uses a synthetic German voice available on your device. Voice quality and availability vary; it does not assess your pronunciation.

Watch out

Match the verb to its subject even when a time phrase comes first: Morgen habe ich frei. Morgen expresses future time, but habe is still present tense.

Try it yourself

  1. Du ___ in Köln. (wohnen)

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    wohnst

    Answer: “wohnst”. The present-tense ending must match the subject’s person and number.

  2. Ihr ___ auf den Bus. (warten)

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    wartet

    Answer: “wartet”. The present-tense ending must match the subject’s person and number.

  3. Morgen ___ ich frei. (haben)

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    habe

    Answer: “habe”. The time expression makes the future clear, so present tense is possible.

Use it today

Use “Ich wohne am Park.” as a model and write versions with du and wir. Check every verb ending and any pronoun that changes.