The present tense and the infinitive

The present tense of German verbs is formed from the infinitive of the verb. This is the part of speech which equates to the English "to do", "to speak" etc. In German, the infinitive almost always ends in "-en". To construct the individual forms, we remove the "-en" from the infinitive and add personal endings which link the verb with the subject in terms of person (i.e. first, second or third person) or number (i.e. singular or plural). We say that the verb 'agrees' with the subject, in that German verbs show the person and the number of the subject of the verb by means of their endings.

 

The verb endings for the present tense of the regular or 'weak' German verb machen (to do) are as follows: