GER 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Built-In Self-Test, Wart, Vowel Shift
Document Summary
The pr sens and pr teritum are the two "fully conjugated" forms in german (that is, they don"t use an auxiliary verb), so it"s good to learn them together. 2nd du kaufst you buy du kauftest r. 1st wir kaufen we buy wir kauften plural. 2nd ihr kauft you (pl. ) buy ihr kauftet. 3rd sie/sie kaufen they buy sie/sie kauften you bought he/she/it bought we bought you (pl. ) bought they bought. Notice the pattern: the "en" ending of the infinitive is removed (sometimes it"s just an "n") and replaced with the appropriate highlighted ending. The past tense endings are mostly just the present tense endings with an extra t; this is the weak past tense ending mentioned in v. i, and it"s directly related to the d ending in the weak english past tense. These twelve endings are used for every weak verb in german, without exception.
