Intermediate german

Unit 7: Modal verbs 53
111
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
13
4111
5
6
7
8
9
2011
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
3011
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
4011
1
2
3
41111
Ich soll heute meine Mutter anrufen.
I am supposed to ring my mother today.
It is also used with suggestions or commands:
Sollen wir mit dem Auto fahren?
Should we go by car?
Du sollst dich schämen!
You should be ashamed (of yourself)!
sollen can also convey a sense of uncertainty when making a prediction
or when reporting what you have heard from another source:
Morgen soll es regnen.
Rain is forecast for tomorrow.
Sie soll wieder geheiratet haben.
They say she’s got married again.
wollen – intention, desire
wollen usually expresses an intention or desire and corresponds to the
English ‘to want to’:
Ich will mit dem Rauchen aufhören.
I want to stop smoking.
Gaby will auswandern.
Gaby wants to emigrate.
Formation in different tenses
Modal verbs are quite irregular in German. Here is a summary of their
forms in different tenses.
Present tense
In the present tense only sollen doesn’t change its stem vowel in the ich,
du and er/sie/es forms. Note also that the first and third person singular
(ich and er/sie/es) have identical forms and don’t have their usual present
tense endings.