A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
The past participle of irregular (also called “strong”) verbs usually ends in –en and
also begins with ge-. Thus, geschwommen is the participle of schwimmen, geworfen
is that of werfen. Note the vowel change. Irregular-verb participles are listed with
their own entries in your dictionary, so you don’t necessarily need to memorize
them. Your dictionary may also have a section listing a large number of irregular
verbs in all their forms.
There are exceptions to these rules for verbs with:
1. Inseparable prefixes (see Unit 4): no ge– is added. Thus, verkaufen (to sell) –
verkauft (sold) and verstehen (to understand) – verstanden (understood).
2. Separable prefixes (see Unit 4): the ge– appears between the prefix and the
stem of the verb e.g., einkaufen (to shop) becomes eingekauft, aufgehen (to
rise) becomes aufgegangen.
3. Verbs ending in –ieren, e.g., studieren: all of these verbs are regular and
therefore end in –t, but they never add ge-. Thus, the past participle of
studieren is studiert, that of interessieren, interessiert. (Caution: the
inseparable-prefix verb verlieren, the past participle of which is verloren, is not
an –ieren verb.)
Syntax
As mentioned, either haben and sein may appear as the auxiliary verb in German,
whereas English only ever uses “to have”. Examples:
Er hat ein Buch gekauft.
Wir haben in München studiert.
Er ist in die Stadt gegangen.
Wann seid ihr nach Hause gefahren?
He bought a book.
We studied in Munich.
He went to town.
When did you drive home?
When is sein the auxiliary? Sein is the auxiliary for many intransitive verbs, i.e.,
verbs that do not take a direct object. These verbs are usually verbs of motion
(gehen) or those depicting a change of state, such as werden (to become) or
verschwinden (to disappear).
The basic law of German word order covered in Unit 1, “verb in second position,”
explains why you see the auxiliary verb – the part of the verb that is conjugated to
match the subject – take the second position, while the participle appears at the
end of the clause.