Language Trip

Conjugation › German › Verlassen

German · Verb Tables · Intermediate

Verlassen Conjugation

verlassen means "to leave" in German. Present: ich verlasse, du verlässt, er / sie / es verlässt, wir verlassen, ihr verlasst, sie / Sie verlassen. Below: all 15 tenses we teach, with examples.

Present Präsens

Stem + -e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en. Used for current facts, habits, and (with a time word) planned future events.

Present continuous Verlaufsform (umgangssprachlich)

German has no grammatical present continuous. Standard German adds "gerade" ("right now") to the plain present; colloquial spoken German (common in the west and increasingly everywhere) uses "sein + am + Infinitiv": "ich bin am Arbeiten". Only the "gerade" forms are considered fully standard and used here.

Simple past Präteritum

Stem + -te-, -test, -te, -ten, -tet, -ten. Used mainly in writing (narratives, news, reports) and for the common auxiliaries and modal verbs even in speech.

Present perfect Perfekt

haben (or sein for motion/change-of-state verbs) + past participle, participle last in the clause. This is the normal past tense of everyday spoken German, for both completed and once-ongoing actions.

Pluperfect Plusquamperfekt

hatte/war (imperfect of the auxiliary) + past participle. Marks an event that had already happened before another past event.

Near future Präsens mit Zukunftsbedeutung

German normally expresses a near or planned future with the plain present tense plus a time expression (gleich, morgen, nächste Woche); Futur I sounds formal or adds emphasis for near events.

Simple future Futur I

werden + infinitive, infinitive last in the clause. Used for predictions, promises, and assumptions about the present ("er wird wohl arbeiten" = he's probably working) more than for plain future facts, which usually just use the present.

Future perfect Futur II

werden + past participle + haben/sein (perfect infinitive), all at the end of the clause. Marks something that will already be finished by a future point, or a confident guess about the past.

Conditional Konjunktiv II (würde-Form)

würde + infinitive. This is the everyday substitute for the Konjunktiv II Präteritum of weak verbs (see Subjunctive: Imperfect), whose own forms are identical to the simple past and so are avoided in speech.

Conditional perfect Konjunktiv II Plusquamperfekt

hätte/wäre + past participle. Expresses what would have happened under different, now-impossible past conditions.

Present Konjunktiv I Präsens

Infinitive stem + -e, -est, -e, -en, -et, -en (same endings for weak and strong verbs). Used for reporting what someone said in the present.

Present perfect Konjunktiv I Perfekt

habe/sei (Konjunktiv I of the auxiliary) + past participle. Used for reporting what someone said had already happened.

Imperfect Konjunktiv II Präteritum

Stem + -te- + the same endings as Konjunktiv I (identical, for a weak verb, to its plain simple past). Expresses a present hypothesis contrary to fact; in speech this is normally replaced by würde + infinitive, shown above as the Conditional.

Pluperfect Konjunktiv II Plusquamperfekt

hätte/wäre + past participle. Expresses a past hypothesis contrary to fact — identical in form to the Conditional perfect above, since German uses the same construction for both functions.

Imperative Imperativ

Informal singular: stem alone (drop -st). Informal plural: same as the ihr-form of the present. Formal and "let's": present-tense wir/Sie-form with the verb moved first. Add "nicht" anywhere in the sentence to negate.

Examples

Learn German Free

Practice Verlassen and every other verb with flashcards and verb drills in the Language Trip app and website. Free, no account needed, no ads.

All German verb tables · Basic German phrases