Questions & Answers about Der Junge liest langsam.
Why is the verb liest if the infinitive is lesen?
lesen (to read) is a strong verb that changes its stem vowel. While this lesson focuses on verbs changing from a to ä, another very common change is from e to ie. This happens in the du (you) and er/sie/es (he/she/it) forms, which is why we get Der Junge liest (The boy reads).
Why does the English translation say "is reading", but there is no word for "is" in the German sentence?
German does not have an "is doing" tense (the present continuous). The single present tense verb liest means both "reads" and "is reading". You should never translate "is reading" word-for-word by adding ist before the verb!
Doesn't the -e at the end of Junge usually mean a word is feminine?
Often, yes! Many German nouns ending in -e are feminine. However, der Junge (the boy) is a common exception. It is a masculine noun, which makes sense based on its meaning, and you can see it clearly takes the masculine article der.
langsam means "slow". Why doesn't it have a special ending to mean "slowly"?
In German, adjectives (which describe nouns) and adverbs (which describe actions) almost always share the exact same form. You don't need to add a special ending like "-ly" in English. langsam can mean both "slow" and "slowly" depending on how it's used in the sentence.
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