Leben means "to live" in the deepest sense: to be alive, to experience existence, to lead one's life in a certain place or way. It is a fully weak (regular) verb — stem leb- throughout, weak past lebte, participle gelebt, Perfekt with haben. The conjugation gives no trouble. What matters for English speakers is the boundary with wohnen: where English uses one verb "to live" for both "I live in Berlin (my flat is there)" and "people lived for thousands of years here," German splits these between wohnen (reside) and leben (be alive / lead one's life). Mastering leben is really about learning when not to use wohnen.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Präteritum | Partizip II (auxiliary) |
|---|---|---|
| leben | lebte | gelebt (hat) |
Read this as: leben – lebte – hat gelebt. The stem leb- takes the weak past marker -te- (leb-te) and the ge-...-t participle frame (ge-leb-t). The auxiliary is haben. This surprises some learners, because leben feels like a state of being and English speakers expect a "be"-type auxiliary — but German reserves sein for verbs of motion and change of state, and leben is neither. You hast gelebt, never bist gelebt.
Präsens (present)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | lebe |
| du | lebst |
| er / sie / es | lebt |
| wir | leben |
| ihr | lebt |
| sie / Sie | leben |
There is no vowel change and no linking -e- — the stem leb- ends in a voiced consonant that takes endings directly (du lebst, er lebt). As always in German, there is no progressive: ich lebe is both "I live" and "I am living."
Ich lebe seit Langem in Berlin und möchte nirgendwo anders sein.
I've lived in Berlin for a long time and wouldn't want to be anywhere else. (informal; leben because it's about her whole life there)
Meine Oma lebt noch und ist fit wie eh und je.
My grandma is still alive and as fit as ever. (informal; leben = to be alive)
Präteritum (simple past)
The weak past stem is lebte. In speech this tense is more common with leben than with most verbs, especially in the third person when talking about historical figures or people who have died (er lebte, sie lebten).
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | lebte |
| du | lebtest |
| er / sie / es | lebte |
| wir | lebten |
| ihr | lebtet |
| sie / Sie | lebten |
Goethe lebte von 1749 bis 1832.
Goethe lived from 1749 to 1832. (narrative past; the standard frame for biographical dates)
Perfekt (present perfect)
Built with the present of haben plus the participle gelebt.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | habe gelebt |
| du | hast gelebt |
| er / sie / es | hat gelebt |
| wir | haben gelebt |
| ihr | habt gelebt |
| sie / Sie | haben gelebt |
Wir haben jahrelang im Ausland gelebt, bevor wir zurückkamen.
We lived abroad for years before we came back. (informal; hat-Perfekt)
Er hat ein bewegtes Leben gelebt.
He led an eventful life. (the cognate object: ein Leben leben)
Plusquamperfekt (past perfect)
Past form of the auxiliary (hatte) + gelebt.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | hatte gelebt |
| du | hattest gelebt |
| er / sie / es | hatte gelebt |
| wir | hatten gelebt |
| ihr | hattet gelebt |
| sie / Sie | hatten gelebt |
Vor dem Krieg hatte die Familie in Wien gelebt.
Before the war the family had lived in Vienna.
Futur I
The future uses werden + the infinitive leben.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | werde leben |
| du | wirst leben |
| er / sie / es | wird leben |
| wir | werden leben |
| ihr | werdet leben |
| sie / Sie | werden leben |
In zwanzig Jahren werden wir alle anders leben.
In twenty years we'll all live differently.
Konjunktiv II (would / hypothetical)
The synthetic Konjunktiv II lebte is identical to the Präteritum, so in conversation the würde-form (würde leben) is usually preferred for clarity. The synthetic form does survive in fixed, slightly literary phrasings.
| Person | würde-form |
|---|---|
| ich | würde leben |
| du | würdest leben |
| er / sie / es | würde leben |
| wir | würden leben |
| ihr | würdet leben |
| sie / Sie | würden leben |
Ohne Musik könnte ich nicht leben.
I couldn't live without music. (hypothetical; with the modal können)
Government and valency
Leben is intransitive — no object. It pairs with adverbials of place, time, or manner, and two prepositional patterns are worth memorising, both governing the dative:
- leben in + Dativ — to live in a country, city, era, or set of circumstances.
- leben von + Dativ — to live on / off something (one's income, a food, a profession). This von is what English expresses with "live on."
Sie lebt von ihrer Rente.
She lives off her pension. (von + dative for the means of subsistence)
Wir leben in unsicheren Zeiten.
We live in uncertain times. (in + dative, extended to an era)
There is also a transitive use with a cognate object: ein Leben leben ("to live a life"), as in Er hat ein gutes Leben gelebt. This is the rare case where leben takes an accusative, and even then the object is always the noun Leben (or a close equivalent like einen Traum leben).
leben vs. wohnen — the core distinction
English "live" hides a split that German makes explicit:
| leben | wohnen |
|---|---|
| to be alive; to lead one's life | to reside at an address / under a roof |
| broad, existential, life-spanning | concrete: where your bed and post arrive |
| Sie lebt für ihre Arbeit. | Sie wohnt im dritten Stock. |
| Dinosaurier lebten vor Millionen Jahren. | Wir wohnen direkt am Park. |
A clean test: if the sentence is about being alive, a way of life, or a country/era as the setting of someone's existence, use leben. If it is about the specific place where someone resides — a flat, a street, a host's home — use wohnen. They overlap only when both readings are true, e.g. Ich lebe / wohne in Köln, where leben foregrounds "Cologne is where my life is" and wohne foregrounds "my apartment is there." See the companion page on wohnen for the residence-specific patterns.
Common idioms and fixed expressions
| Expression | English |
|---|---|
| von der Hand in den Mund leben | to live hand to mouth |
| in den Tag hinein leben | to live without a plan, take each day as it comes |
| am Leben bleiben | to stay alive |
| Es lebe ...! | Long live ...! (Konjunktiv I, fixed exclamation) |
| leben und leben lassen | live and let live |
Am Anfang haben wir von der Hand in den Mund gelebt.
At the start we lived hand to mouth. (informal idiom)
Common Mistakes
❌ Mein Urgroßvater ist neunzig Jahre gelebt.
Incorrect auxiliary — leben uses haben in the Perfekt, not sein.
✅ Mein Urgroßvater hat neunzig Jahre gelebt.
My great-grandfather lived to be ninety.
❌ Ich wohne für meine Familie.
Wrong verb — 'living for' something is about how you lead your life, so it needs leben.
✅ Ich lebe für meine Familie.
I live for my family.
❌ Sie lebt mit ihrem Gehalt.
Wrong preposition — 'to live on' an income is leben von, not leben mit.
✅ Sie lebt von ihrem Gehalt.
She lives on her salary.
❌ Diese Tiere wohnten vor langer Zeit.
Impossible — animals are alive (leben), they do not 'reside' (wohnen).
✅ Diese Tiere lebten vor langer Zeit.
These animals lived a long time ago.
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: leben – lebte – hat gelebt (weak verb, Perfekt with haben).
- Present: lebe, lebst, lebt, leben, lebt, leben — fully regular, no vowel change.
- Government: intransitive; leben in + Dativ (place/era) and leben von + Dativ ("live on" income or food). Rare transitive ein Leben leben.
- Leben = be alive / lead one's life; wohnen = reside at an address.
- Use von, not mit, for the source of one's livelihood.
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- wohnen: Full Conjugation and UsageA1 — Complete conjugation of the weak verb wohnen 'to live, reside' across every tense, with its prepositional patterns (wohnen in / bei), the leben vs. wohnen distinction, and the mistakes English speakers make.
- Present Tense: Regular (Weak) VerbsA1 — The full present-tense paradigm of regular German verbs, and why one German form does the work of three English ones.
- 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.
- Präteritum of Weak Verbs (-te)A2 — The fully regular weak past: stem + -te + endings, the ich/er identity, and the linking -ete- after t- and d-stems.
- Dative Prepositions in UseA2 — The everyday dative prepositions — aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu — what each one means and how to use them naturally.
- Transitive and Intransitive Verbs (and Valency)B1 — How a verb's valency — the case and prepositional frame it requires — determines its object, and how it links to the haben/sein auxiliary choice in the Perfekt.