German is part of the Romano-Germanic group of languages along with English and French. Many of the principles for constructing sentences are similar. But there is an exception to every rule. The German language has its own characteristics and differences. This applies to the verbs haben and sein in German. They are the most common and commonly used.
The base for learning a language is another language
If a person who decides to learn German already knows any other European language, then it will be much easier to learn it. Especially if the base is English, which is very similar to it.
Otherwise, any next language after German will be easier to learn. This is due to the historical processes that took place in the territories of Germany and modern Great Britain. Due to numerous conquests in the Middle Ages, languages \u200b\u200bare mixed and the features of one dialect fell into another. Therefore, they are classified as one large group.
The difference between semantic andauxiliary verb
There is a feature in German: auxiliary and semantic verbs.
A semantic verb is a word denoting a specific action, and an auxiliary one does not carry a lexical load. But it shows time or status.
Semantic verbs that indicate action can be used with auxiliaries. Such words are called transitive and intransitive. You can find out about the quality of the verb in the list, which is in each explanatory dictionary at the end or beginning of the book. Next to the translation, in brackets, it is indicated which semantic verb should be used in a particular case - haben or sein. If the sentence requires several verbs, then the semantic one is in second place, and the auxiliary goes to the very end of the sentence.
Meaning of main auxiliary verbs
The verb sein in German is translated as "to be", "to exist". In addition to the main values, there are others:
- indicating a property (often used with adjectives);
- location indoors, outdoors or an indication of the territorial address: city, country;
- season;
- used to indicate time;
- an expression of attitude towards someone or one's own state of physical or mental he alth.
This verb is the English equivalent of the verb "to be". The word haben is translated as "to have", "to possess". That is, sein and haben are auxiliary verbs that do not carry a lexical meaning inoffer.
Conjugation scheme
Depending on the pronoun, words can be conjugated, that is, they can change their form due to the noun that is next to them.
There are 8 pronouns in German. When conjugating the verb sein in German, the word completely changes its stem. As a rule, each pronoun has a certain ending attached to it, which is added to the verb. But there are special words to which this rule does not apply. The verbs sein and haben refer to this case.
The ending -e is applicable to the pronoun "I", "you" - st, "he" - t, "she" - t, "it" - t, "we" - en, "you" - t, "they" - en. The verb is conjugated as follows:
- ich - bin;
- du-bist;
- er/sie/es - ist;
- wir - sind;
- ihr - seid;
- sie - sind.
In this form, the verb sein in German is used in the present tense. The word haben also changes according to persons in a special order, and the scheme for constructing a sentence does not differ from the example with the verb sein.
Use at different times
German is similar to English in terms of tenses. If the sentence is built according to the simple tense template, then the verb must be put in second place after the pronoun or subject. The German verb sein changes to waren and translates as "was". In this case, the conjugationfollows the basic rules with a change in endings.
Besides the present and past tense, the German verb sein helps form other forms, such as the past tense. It is used when there are several actions in the past and it is necessary to show which one happened first. In this case, the auxiliary verb is in second place, and the semantic verb is in last in the third form, which can be found in a special table of irregular verbs. Then the sentence looks like this: subject, sein or haben, object and main verb.
Thus, the conjugation of the verbs haben and sein in German has its own peculiarities. In learning, most of the changes will need to be memorized. Since these auxiliary verbs are used quite often, with practice, all the subtleties of use and conjugation will no longer cause difficulties.
