Present tenseWeak verbs - infinitives

Here are the infinitives of some weak verbs.

• spielen – to play
• kaufen – to buy
• besuchen – to visit

Examples in use

Weak verbs with a difference

There is a group of slightly different weak verbs, eg

• finden – to find
• arbeiten – to work
• warten – to wait
• erwarten – to expect
• erfinden – to invent

• when you take off the -en, you'll see that the stems of these particular verbs end either in the letter -d or -t
• you add the usual weak endings to most of the verb
• however, when you add the usual endings to the du, er/sie/es and ihr forms, they are not very clear, and therefore incorrect, eg er findt or sie wartt
• to make them clearer, and easier to pronounce, you have to add -e- between the stem and the ending for the du, er/sie/es and ihr forms only, eg er findet or sie wartet

Do it like this:

This rule applies to all verbs whose stem ends in -d or -t.

• finden – to find

stem: find-

• ich finde – I find
• du findest – you find
• er findet – he finds
• sie findet – she finds
• es findet – it finds
• wir finden – we find
• ihr findet – you find
• Sie finden – you find
• sie finden – they find