A1.1 · 13 of 30
Unregelmäßige Verben (Vokalwechsel)
Lesson · 4 rules · about 5 min
A handful of everyday verbs change their vowel for just two people — du and er/sie/es — and stay normal everywhere else.
- 1Only du and er/sie/es change
- 2a → ä, e → i, e → ie
- 3nehmen and essen shrink
- 4The endings are still regular
Why this matters
A small group of very common verbs change their stem vowel in the present tense — but only in two forms, du and er/sie/es. Everything else about them is regular: the endings are the usual -e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en, and ich, wir, ihr and sie/Sie keep the vowel of the infinitive. There are three kinds of change — a becomes ä (fahren → du fährst), e becomes i (sprechen → du sprichst, essen → du isst) and e becomes ie (lesen → du liest, sehen → du siehst). The eight verbs in this quiz are among the most common in everyday German and cover most of what you will meet; nehmen is the odd one out, doubling the m and losing the h: du nimmst, er nimmt. Because the umlaut is the whole point here, it is checked strictly: fahrst for fährst is marked wrong (type ae if your keyboard has no ä).
du
du mit dem Bus zur Arbeit? (fahren)
Do you take the bus to work?
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Exercise
Unregelmäßige Verben (Vokalwechsel) · A1.1
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