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Können Conjugation

können means "to can, be able" in German. Present: ich ich kann, du du kannst, er / sie / es er/sie/es kann, wir wir können, ihr ihr könnt, sie / Sie sie/Sie können. Below: all 18 tenses we teach, with examples.

Present Präsens

Stem + personal ending (-e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en); used for current actions, general truths and habits, and — with a time expression — as the normal, everyday way to talk about the future.

Simple past (narrative past) Präteritum (Imperfekt)

Stem + -te- + ending for weak verbs; the normal past tense of written narration and formal Standard German; in everyday southern German, Austrian and Swiss speech it survives mainly in sein, haben and the modal verbs, elsewhere replaced by the Perfekt.

Present perfect (conversational past) Perfekt

haben or sein (present) + past participle; the everyday spoken past tense for completed actions, and also used in writing when the action still matters now.

Past perfect Plusquamperfekt

haben or sein (Präteritum) + past participle; an action completed before another past action or moment.

Future Futur I

werden (present) + infinitive; expresses future events, and just as often present probability or assumption (er wird wohl zu Hause sein = he's probably home).

Future perfect Futur II

werden (present) + past participle + haben/sein; a fairly literary tense for an action that will be finished by a future point, though in speech it more often expresses a past assumption (er wird es wohl vergessen haben = he's probably forgotten it).

Reported present (Konjunktiv I present) Konjunktiv I Präsens

Stem + -e, -est, -e, -en, -et, -en; the base form for reporting a present-tense statement without vouching for it.

Reported past (Konjunktiv I perfect) Konjunktiv I Perfekt

haben/sein (Konjunktiv I) + past participle; reports a statement about the past.

Reported future (Konjunktiv I future) Konjunktiv I Futur I

werden (Konjunktiv I) + infinitive; reports a statement about the future.

Reported future perfect (rare, literary) Konjunktiv I Futur II

werden (Konjunktiv I) + past participle + haben/sein; reports a statement about a completed future event; rare and mostly confined to formal or literary writing.

Hypothetical present (Konjunktiv II preterite) Konjunktiv II Präteritum

For weak verbs like machen and arbeiten this form is identical to the indicative Präteritum, which is exactly why speakers avoid it and use the würde-form instead; strong verbs add an umlaut where possible (käme, wäre, hätte) and stay distinct. Expresses an unreal or hypothetical present, or a wish.

Hypothetical past (Konjunktiv II pluperfect) Konjunktiv II Plusquamperfekt

hätte/wäre + past participle; the standard way to express an unreal condition or regret about the past ('would have').

Conditional (würde-form) Konditional I (würde-Form)

würde (Konjunktiv II of werden) + infinitive; the everyday substitute for the synthetic Konjunktiv II of weak verbs and of most other verbs; also the standard way to make a polite request.

Conditional perfect Konditional II

würde + past participle + haben/sein; the periphrastic equivalent of the Konjunktiv II Plusquamperfekt, used less often since the synthetic hatte/wäre-form is already perfectly natural there.

Infinitive Infinitiv Präsens

The dictionary form, always ending in -en or -n; used after modal verbs, after zu, and as a capitalized verbal noun (das Machen = the making/doing).

Perfect infinitive Infinitiv Perfekt

past participle + haben/sein; used mainly after modal verbs to express a past inference (er muss das gemacht haben = he must have done that).

Present participle Partizip I (Partizip Präsens)

stem + -end; used mainly as an adjective (das lachende Kind = the laughing child) or adverbially; unlike English -ing, it is not used to build a progressive tense.

Past participle Partizip II (Partizip Perfekt)

ge- + stem + -t for weak verbs (no ge- for inseparable-prefix verbs and verbs ending in -ieren); used to build every compound tense and as an adjective or passive participle.

Examples

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