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Verbs

1 What are action words (verbs)?

There are words we use to describe what someone does or what happens. We call these words verbs. Sometimes they are also called doing words, action words, activity words or time words. They are the most important words in a sentence, because without them we can't understand what is meant.

What we do What do you call it when children ... Something is happening here What are these animals doing?

2 Regular Verbs

Verbs can change, too. Every verb has a basic form, such as “to drink.” We use a different form depending on who is doing the action: “I drink, you drink, he drinks, we drink,” and so on. Some verbs change less than others, though. Their root stays the same. Only the ending changes when we form different verb forms. These are called regular verbs. Here are some examples:

The verb “to go” The verb "to talk" The verbs “winken” and “spielen” The verbs “holen” and “hören”

3 Irregular Verbs

Some verbs change more than others. We call them irregular verbs. There are no set rules for which verbs belong to this group, or for how they change. So you simply have to learn them. Here are a few more examples:

The verbs “to walk” and “to travel” The verbs “speak” and “sleep”

4 Auxiliary verbs

We sometimes add short verbs to many verbs to describe more precisely what we mean. We call these other verbs auxiliary verbs. They are the words have, be and become. For example, we say, "I have eaten." This tells us that the eating happened in the past. If we say, "I will eat something soon," then it will happen in the future. Here’s an exercise:

The auxiliary verbs “haben,” “sein” and “werden”