Strong Verb Reference Tables (Präteritum and Participle)

German strong verbs change their stem vowel to mark the past — singen → sang → gesungen, schreiben → schrieb → geschrieben. There are only a few hundred of them, but the most common are also the most irregular, so they cannot be ducked. The trap most learners fall into is memorizing them in random order, one flashcard at a time. This page does the opposite: it organizes them by ablaut class, the inherited vowel-change pattern. The payoff is huge. Once you know that schreiben → schrieb → geschrieben belongs to the ei–ie–ie class, you already know bleiben → blieb → geblieben, treiben → trieb → getrieben, and a dozen others. You stop memorizing verbs and start memorizing families.

How to read these tables

Each verb has up to four principal parts — the forms you cannot predict and therefore must store:

1. Infinitiv — the dictionary form.
2. Präteritum (er-form) — the simple past, third-person singular. (We give the er-form because it has no ending; the stem is bare and easy to see.)
3. Partizip II — the past participle, used in the Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt.
4. Hilfsverb — the auxiliary in the Perfekt: haben or sein. Verbs of motion or change of state take sein (ist gegangen); most others take haben (hat gesehen).

We also flag the present-tense vowel change where it exists, because many strong verbs shift their vowel in the du- and er-*forms of the present too (*fahren → er fährt, geben → er gibt).

Class ei – ie – ie

The vowel goes ei in the infinitive, ie in both the Präteritum and the participle. This is one of the largest and most predictable classes. Almost all of these take haben; bleiben is the notable sein exception, and steigen takes sein as a motion verb.

A subgroup of this class shortens to i (not ie) in the past — beißen → biss → gebissen, greifen → griff → gegriffen, leiden → litt → gelitten. The infinitive vowel is still ei, but the short vowel in the past is the giveaway.

Class ie – o – o

Infinitive ie, Präteritum and participle both o. Motion verbs here take sein.

Note ziehen: with a direct object it means "to pull" and takes haben (Er hat den Wagen gezogen); meaning "to move house" it is a motion verb and takes sein (Sie ist umgezogen).

Class i – a – u

Infinitive i, Präteritum a, participle u. This is the classic "sing–sang–sung" family — and indeed singen is its poster child. All of these have a nasal cluster (ng, nd, nk) and take haben.

This is the single best class to learn first, because its predictability is near-total: see an i + nasal verb and you can almost always read off a in the past and u in the participle.

Class i – a – o

A close cousin of the previous class, but the participle is o, not u. Only a handful of verbs do this, with beginnen the most common. All take haben.

Class e – a – o

Infinitive e, Präteritum a, participle o. These verbs usually also change e → i/ie in the present (er spricht, er nimmt). All take haben.

Nehmen is the wild card: its present and participle double the consonant (nimmt, genommen) and the Präteritum is nahm with a long a. Treat it as a memorized exception within the class.

Class e – a – e

Infinitive e, Präteritum a, and the participle returns to e. Present tense changes e → i/ie (er gibt, er liest). All take haben except geschehen (to happen, sein).

Watch the spelling of essen → aß → gegessen: the Präteritum uses ß after the long a, and the participle inserts an extra g (ge-g-essen). These are exactly the forms learners misspell.

Class a – u – a

Infinitive a, Präteritum u, participle back to a. These take an umlaut in the present (er fährt, er trägt). Motion verbs take sein.

Class a – ie/i – a

Infinitive a, Präteritum ie (or short i), participle back to a. Present takes an umlaut (er fällt, er hält). All take haben except fallen (sein).

The irregular and mixed core

Finally, the highest-frequency verbs of all — and the ones that fit no clean class. You simply memorize these, because everything else in German leans on them. The mixed verbs (bringen, denken) are weak in form but change their vowel like a strong verb (brachte, dachte), so they straddle both systems.

Note stehen → stand → gestanden: the auxiliary is haben in the north (hat gestanden) but sein across much of the south and Austria (ist gestanden). Both are standard; pick one and be consistent.

English contrast: same machinery, different inventory

English has these "strong" verbs too — sing–sang–sung, ride–rode–ridden, give–gave–given, see–saw–seen — and they descend from the very same ablaut classes. The difference is that English has worn most of its classes down to rubble, so its irregular verbs feel like random exceptions you just memorize. German has preserved the system, which means the classes still predict one another. That is the leverage this page offers: an English speaker who memorizes schreiben → schrieb → geschrieben as a one-off is throwing away the very regularity that German still has and English has lost.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Strong-verb principal parts are Infinitiv – Präteritum – Partizip II – Hilfsverb; store all four.
• Organize them by ablaut class (ei–ie–ie, i–a–u, e–a–o, …): one member predicts the rest of the family.
• Strong participles end in -en (geschrieben, gelesen), not the weak -t.
• Mark the auxiliary: motion and change-of-state verbs take sein (ist gegangen, ist gefahren), most others haben.
• The mixed verbs (brachte, dachte, wusste) change their vowel like strong verbs but take the weak -t/-te endings.
• English has the same ablaut classes but has lost their regularity — German has kept it, so use the system instead of brute memorization.