German turns verbs into adjectives constantly. A verb can supply a quality — the crying child, the boiled eggs, a sleeping dog — and German handles all of these with participles: the present participle (formed with -end) and the past participle (the ge-...-t / ge-...-en form you already know from the perfect tense). When a participle modifies a noun, it behaves like any other attributive adjective: it sits in front of the noun and it declines for case, gender, and number.
The grammar here is not hard once you see the logic. The harder part is meaning — the present participle marks an ongoing, active quality, while the past participle marks a completed one, often passive. Sorting those two apart is where this page does its real work.
Forming the present participle
The present participle is the German equivalent of an English -ing word used as an adjective (the running water, the sleeping child). You build it with a single rule:
Infinitive + -d.
| Infinitive | Present participle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lachen (to laugh) | lachend | laughing |
| schlafen (to sleep) | schlafend | sleeping |
| weinen (to cry) | weinend | crying |
| kochen (to boil) | kochend | boiling |
| steigen (to rise) | steigend | rising |
That's the entire formation: take the infinitive, add -d. (The only two irregular ones are sein → seiend and tun → tuend, both rare.) When this participle modifies a noun, it then takes the normal adjective ending on top of the -d:
Das lachende Kind steckte alle an.
The laughing child got everyone going.
Vorsicht, kochendes Wasser!
Careful, boiling water!
Die steigenden Mieten sind ein großes Problem.
The rising rents are a big problem.
The present participle is active and ongoing
A present participle describes a quality the noun is actively producing or undergoing right now. The child is doing the laughing; the water is doing the boiling; the rents are doing the rising. It is active in voice and imperfective in aspect — the action is in progress, not finished.
Ein bellender Hund beißt selten.
A barking dog rarely bites.
Sie reichte mir eine dampfende Tasse Tee.
She handed me a steaming cup of tea.
Die wachsende Zahl der Bewerbungen überraschte die Firma.
The growing number of applications surprised the company.
This form is overwhelmingly attributive — it lives in front of nouns. Used on its own as a free-standing adverb or predicate, it is much rarer and sounds literary (Lachend verließ sie den Raum — "Laughing, she left the room"). For everyday German you will meet the present participle almost exclusively as an adjective, which is exactly the use this page covers.
The past participle is completed and often passive
The past participle (gemacht, gekocht, gebraten, geschlossen) you already know from the perfect tense (Ich habe es gemacht). As an attributive adjective it marks a quality resulting from a completed action. With transitive verbs it is also passive in meaning — the noun received the action rather than performing it.
Die geschlossene Tür ließ sich nicht öffnen.
The closed door wouldn't open.
Sie servierte gebratene Kartoffeln mit Speck.
She served fried potatoes with bacon.
Das reparierte Fahrrad steht wieder im Keller.
The repaired bike is back in the cellar.
The eggs in die gekochten Eier did not boil anything — they were boiled. The door in die geschlossene Tür was closed by someone. That passive sense is the key difference from the present participle, and it maps neatly onto the English distinction between -ing (active: the boiling water) and -ed (passive/completed: the boiled water).
The active / passive contrast in one pair
Put the two participles of the same verb side by side and the whole system snaps into focus:
| Phrase | Participle | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| der kochende Reis | present (-end) | the rice that is boiling (active, in progress) |
| der gekochte Reis | past | the rice that has been boiled (completed, passive) |
Der kochende Reis spritzte aus dem Topf.
The boiling rice splattered out of the pot.
Der gekochte Reis war leider schon kalt.
The boiled rice was unfortunately already cold.
One is rice in the act of boiling; the other is rice that the cooking is already done to. Same verb, opposite participles, opposite meanings.
Both types decline like any adjective
This is the structural rule that ties everything together: a participle in attributive position takes the exact same endings as a normal adjective. The same weak / mixed / strong tables that govern klein, rot, and neu govern lachend and gekocht with no exceptions. Build the participle first, then add the adjective ending.
| Case | Present participle (weak, after der) | Past participle (strong, no article) |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | das lachende Kind | gekochte Eier |
| Accusative | das lachende Kind | gekochte Eier |
| Dative | dem lachenden Kind | gekochten Eiern |
| Genitive | des lachenden Kindes | gekochter Eier |
Wir gaben dem schlafenden Hund etwas Ruhe.
We gave the sleeping dog some peace.
Mit gefrorenen Beeren schmeckt der Smoothie besser.
The smoothie tastes better with frozen berries.
Der Geruch der gebratenen Zwiebeln zog durch die ganze Wohnung.
The smell of the fried onions drifted through the whole apartment.
Notice that the participle never freezes into a fixed form. Schlafend becomes schlafenden in the dative; gefroren becomes gefrorenen. The participle is a real adjective, and it answers to case the way every German adjective does. If you can decline klein, you can decline lachend and gefroren.
Common Mistakes
❌ das lachend Kind
Incorrect — the participle must take an adjective ending.
✅ das lachende Kind
The laughing child.
❌ Das Kind ist lachend ein Lied.
Incorrect — the present participle is not a continuous tense; you can't build 'is laughing' with it.
✅ Das Kind singt ein Lied.
The child is singing a song.
❌ Ich mag gekochend Eier.
Incorrect — eggs are boiled (past participle), not boiling; also undeclined.
✅ Ich mag gekochte Eier.
I like boiled eggs.
❌ Wir saßen neben dem schlafend Hund.
Incorrect — dative requires the ending -en on the participle.
✅ Wir saßen neben dem schlafenden Hund.
We sat next to the sleeping dog.
❌ die fallend Blätter
Incorrect — plural attributive needs the ending, and it should be the falling (active) leaves.
✅ die fallenden Blätter
The falling leaves.
Key Takeaways
- Present participle = infinitive + -d (lachen → lachend); it is active and ongoing ("the laughing child").
- Past participle (gekocht, geschlossen) is completed and usually passive ("the boiled eggs").
- Compare der kochende Reis (boiling) with der gekochte Reis (boiled) to feel the active/passive split.
- Both participles decline exactly like ordinary adjectives — never leave them bare in front of a noun.
- German has no -ing gerund or continuous tense, so the present participle is purely adjectival, never a verb form.
Now practice German
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning German→Related Topics
- Weak Adjective Declension (after der-words)A2 — The weak endings used when a definite article or der-word already shows the case: only -e or -en, with -e in just five cells.
- Extended Participial AttributesC1 — The erweitertes Partizipialattribut: how formal German packs a whole modifying phrase between the article and the noun, and how to unpack it into a relative clause.
- German Adjectives: An OverviewA1 — The fundamental split between uninflected predicate adjectives and inflected attributive adjectives, and how it sets up the three declension patterns.
- The Present Participle (Partizip I)B2 — How to form Partizip I (infinitive + -d), and why it is purely adjectival and adverbial — never a verb tense, because German has no continuous.
- Past Participles of Weak Verbs (ge-...-t)A2 — How to build the regular German past participle: ge- + stem + -t, plus the verbs that drop ge- entirely.