Gehen ("to go, to walk, to go on foot") is one of the first verbs every learner meets and one of the most frequent in the language. Its core meaning is movement on foot — which is why, when you travel by car, train, or plane, German prefers fahren or fliegen, not gehen. It is a strong (irregular) verb with the ablaut series gehen – ging – gegangen, and because it is a verb of motion it forms its Perfekt with sein, not haben. On top of all this, gehen anchors a family of everyday idioms — Es geht mir gut, Das geht nicht, Wie geht's? — that you will use in your very first conversations.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Präteritum | Partizip II (auxiliary) |
|---|---|---|
| gehen | ging | gegangen (ist) |
Read this as gehen – ging – ist gegangen. The vowel pattern e → i → a (gehen / ging / gegangen) is highly irregular and must simply be memorised. Note that the modern spelling is ging (the older gieng, with a silent i, is obsolete) and that the auxiliary is sein: "I have gone" is ich bin gegangen, never ich habe gegangen.
Why sein, not haben
Gehen takes sein in the Perfekt because it is an intransitive verb of motion that describes a change of location. German splits the Perfekt auxiliary by meaning: verbs that move you from A to B (gehen, kommen, fahren, fliegen, laufen) and verbs of change of state (werden, sterben) take sein; almost everything else takes haben. English lost this distinction centuries ago — we say "I have gone," "I have come," "I have run" all with have — so this is something English speakers must train against. See haben vs sein in the Perfekt and verbs of position and motion.
Präsens (present)
Gehen is fully regular in the present — no stem-vowel change, unlike many other strong verbs.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | gehe |
| du | gehst |
| er / sie / es | geht |
| wir | gehen |
| ihr | geht |
| sie / Sie | gehen |
Ich gehe jeden Morgen zu Fuß zur Arbeit.
I walk to work every morning. (informal — gehen for on-foot movement)
Gehst du heute Abend mit ins Konzert?
Are you coming to the concert tonight? (informal — 'mitgehen' as a separable verb)
Wir gehen jetzt, sonst kommen wir zu spät.
We're leaving now, otherwise we'll be late.
Präteritum (simple past)
The strong past stem is ging-. Note that the ich and er/sie/es forms have no ending (ich ging, er ging) — the hallmark of strong verbs in the Präteritum. This is the standard written narrative past and is also common in speech for gehen.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | ging |
| du | gingst |
| er / sie / es | ging |
| wir | gingen |
| ihr | gingt |
| sie / Sie | gingen |
Sie ging ohne ein Wort aus dem Zimmer.
She walked out of the room without a word. (narrative Präteritum)
Damals gingen wir oft am Fluss spazieren.
Back then we often went for walks along the river.
Perfekt (present perfect)
Built with the present of sein + the participle gegangen. This is the everyday spoken past in southern and central Germany and in casual speech everywhere.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | bin gegangen |
| du | bist gegangen |
| er / sie / es | ist gegangen |
| wir | sind gegangen |
| ihr | seid gegangen |
| sie / Sie | sind gegangen |
Ich bin gestern Abend früh ins Bett gegangen.
I went to bed early last night. (bin gegangen, never 'habe gegangen')
Wohin seid ihr nach der Party gegangen?
Where did you go after the party? (informal)
Plusquamperfekt (past perfect)
Past form of the auxiliary (war) + gegangen.
Als ich ankam, war sie schon nach Hause gegangen.
By the time I arrived, she had already gone home.
Futur I
Future with werden + infinitive gehen. Note that for a planned future event Germans very often just use the present plus a time word (Morgen gehe ich ...).
Nächste Woche werde ich endlich zum Arzt gehen.
Next week I'll finally go to the doctor.
Imperativ (commands)
| Addressee | Form |
|---|---|
| du | geh! (gehe!) |
| ihr | geht! |
| Sie | gehen Sie! |
The du-command drops the -st ending: geh! The longer gehe! exists but sounds bookish; everyday speech uses geh.
Geh bitte schon mal vor, ich komme gleich nach.
Go on ahead, please — I'll follow in a second. (informal du-command)
Gehen Sie bitte zum Schalter drei.
Please go to counter three. (formal Sie-command)
Konjunktiv II (would go)
The synthetic Konjunktiv II of gehen is ginge — the past stem ging plus an -e and an umlaut where possible (here the stem vowel i cannot umlaut further, so the form is simply ginge). It is still used in careful speech and writing; in casual speech the würde-form (würde gehen) often replaces it.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | ginge |
| du | gingest |
| er / sie / es | ginge |
| wir | gingen |
| ihr | ginget |
| sie / Sie | gingen |
An deiner Stelle ginge ich da gar nicht erst hin.
If I were you, I wouldn't even go there in the first place. (synthetic Konjunktiv II)
Konjunktiv I (reported speech)
Used in formal indirect speech. The base is gehe.
Der Bericht behauptet, alles gehe seinen gewohnten Gang.
The report claims everything is taking its usual course. (formal/journalistic Konjunktiv I)
The Es geht family of idioms
Gehen is wildly idiomatic. The impersonal es geht is the engine behind some of the most common phrases in German, several of which take a dative of the person affected (mir, dir, ihm) — see the dative of interest.
| Expression | English |
|---|---|
| Wie geht's? / Wie geht es dir? | How are you? (lit. 'how goes it to you') |
| Es geht mir gut. | I'm doing well. |
| Das geht (nicht). | That works / is OK (that won't work / isn't possible). |
| Es geht um ... | It's about ... / The point is ... |
| Worum geht es? | What's it about? |
| Geht in Ordnung. | That's fine / will do. (informal) |
Mir geht es im Moment nicht so gut.
I'm not doing so great at the moment. (dative 'mir' — the impersonal 'es geht mir' construction)
In dem Film geht es um eine alte Freundschaft.
The film is about an old friendship. (es geht um + accusative = 'to be about')
Common Mistakes
❌ Ich habe nach Hause gegangen.
Wrong auxiliary — gehen is a verb of motion and takes sein in the Perfekt.
✅ Ich bin nach Hause gegangen.
I went home.
❌ Ich gehe morgen mit dem Zug nach München.
Misleading — gehen means on foot; for trains, cars, and planes use fahren (or fliegen).
✅ Ich fahre morgen mit dem Zug nach München.
I'm going to Munich by train tomorrow.
❌ Wie geht es du?
Incorrect case — the person in this idiom is in the dative, not the nominative.
✅ Wie geht es dir?
How are you?
❌ Ich habe gegangen ins Kino.
Two problems — wrong auxiliary (needs sein) and the participle belongs at the clause end.
✅ Ich bin ins Kino gegangen.
I went to the cinema.
❌ Ich geht zur Schule.
Wrong form — the ich-form is gehe; geht is the er/ihr-form.
✅ Ich gehe zur Schule.
I go to school.
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: gehen – ging – ist gegangen (Perfekt with sein, because it is motion).
- Present is regular: gehe, gehst, geht, gehen, geht, gehen — no vowel change.
- Gehen means on foot; for vehicles use fahren / fliegen.
- Konjunktiv II is ginge; the du-imperative is geh!
- Master the es geht idioms early — Wie geht's, Es geht mir gut, Das geht nicht, Es geht um ... — and remember the person takes the dative.
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- Präteritum of Strong Verbs (Ablaut)B1 — How to form the simple past of strong verbs: a changed stem vowel plus a special ending set where ich and er take no ending.
- Perfekt Auxiliary: haben vs seinA2 — How to choose between haben and sein in the German Perfekt — motion and change of state take sein, and a direct object flips it to haben.
- Verbs of Position, Motion, and Direction (hin/her)B1 — The directional particles hin (away from the speaker) and her (toward the speaker), how they combine with verbs and prepositions, and the colloquial fusions rein/raus/rauf/runter.
- Synthetic Konjunktiv II FormsB2 — Building the one-word Konjunktiv II from the Präteritum stem plus umlaut — and why weak verbs surrender these forms to würde.
- kommen: Full Conjugation and UsageA1 — Complete conjugation of the strong verb kommen 'to come' across every tense and mood, with the sein auxiliary, its many separable derivatives, principal parts, idioms, and the errors English speakers make.
- The Dative of Interest and Free DativesB2 — The 'free' datives that aren't required by the verb — dative of interest, the possessive dative with body parts, and the ethical dative.