7 Practice Resources for Fast and Accurate German Verb Usage

The use of a good action verb—whether in a speech, in writing or even while chatting with someone in a pub—can have a monumental effect on how you communicate with the world around you.

However, the German verb game is a little bit different from English, and can sometimes get pretty complicated.

The handy sites in this post will help you practice using German verbs so that you won’t have a problem actually using and understanding them. Let’s get to it!

Contents

Conjuguemos

As we mentioned above, verb conjugations are often introduced early in the German learning process. This is the case because you’re going to have to make changes to verbs in virtually all sentences. That’s why we like the Conjuguemos resource. It has a verb chart for each of the categories, along with games and quizzes where you choose pronouns, verbs and conjugations.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Indicative mood: The simple tenses
  • Indicative mood: The compound tenses
  • Subjunctive mood
  • Prefix verbs
  • Reflexive verbs
  • Irregular verbs
  • Weak verbs
  • Strong verbs
  • Much more!

German.net

The German.net site is packed with activities and tips for improving your German, but this page caters to the learner who wants to focus on all types of verbs. The exercises range from very easy to difficult, and you can do both fill-in-the-blank exercises and multiple choice tests.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Reflexive verbs
  • Separable verbs
  • Regular verbs
  • Irregular verbs
  • Modal verbs

About.com

About.com is probably the most popular site on this list, since it has categories for just about everything, from cooking to learning about PowerPoint presentations. You’d think the company would be spread pretty thin, but the German pages are actually pretty nice for practicing by yourself at home. This page is like a simple quiz for testing your present tense German verb knowledge to start, and you can use the above link to find additional German verb links to explore.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

Vocabulix

Vocabulix combines plenty of drills and tests for you to roll right through as you’re learning about conjugation. Select your first language and the language you’d like to learn (in this case, German). Choose the verb you’d like to work on, along with whether or not you’d like to tackle options like the past and future tense. Finally, go through the quiz for that particular verb conjugation. It’s a beautiful resource for only working on the verbs you struggle with.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Conjugation
  • Present tense
  • Past tense
  • Future tense
  • Conditional

Dartmouth’s German Word Order page

Word order comes into play for some situations in the German language. For example, modal verbs and relative clauses are generally going to move around the positioning of your verbs. With modal verbs, the second verb is always placed at the end of the sentence. The Dartmouth page above is basically a large document with outlines on what rules to follow when these instances occur that you can use as a reference and walkthrough for independent study and practice.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Declarative sentences
  • Dative and accusative objects
  • The position of the nominative subject
  • Interrogative sentences
  • Dependent clauses

Quizlet

We like Quizlet for the more advanced German learners out there, since it throws in verbs that you wouldn’t probably be using in everyday conversation. At first glance I see verbs like schätzen (to value, estimate), feststellen (to establish), zerschlagen (to shatter, smash) and kneifen (to pinch, squeeze). The whole point of the page is for you to go through the more unique verbs that you may not have learned on the first day of German class. Use the audio clips to gain a better understanding of the pronunciations, and star certain verbs so that groups of them can be studied together.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Mainly the root forms of the verbs (but you get a huge list of advanced words)

Deutsch-lernen.com

This website is for all levels, from beginner to advanced. The reason we put this on the list is because it doesn’t matter if you’re just getting started or if you consider yourself mostly fluent. Select a level and exercise, and move on to the little exercises and quizzes they have set up for you. Grammar pages and word lists are given for your browsing, and you can print out some of the examples for looking at later.

What kind of subjects does this resource cover?

  • Just about every verb form you can imagine

Aside from doing verb conjugation exercises, you’ll also want to immerse in native content to get exposure to diverse German verbs.  

What Should You Look to Gain with German Verb Practice?

  • The ability to use the proper conjugations, along with knowing when certain verbs have unique rules for those conjugations.
  • The ability to pronounce each of the conjugations. Some of the websites below have cool audio tools for listening in and repeating what the verbs sound like.
  • A strong understanding of the base version of each word. This comes in handy prior to conjugating, since you can start with the easier root word and adjust it based on the subject. This is also helpful for quizzes and tests in school.
  • Knowledge of where to place verbs in certain situations. For example, modal verbs and relative clauses are instances where you would send the verb towards the end of the sentence.
  • The eventual ability to be able to conjugate and place verbs naturally. As you practice and learn conjugations, they’ll eventually become second nature to you. You can use other resources besides those listed below to tune your ears to how verbs should sound when conjugated. With a program like FluentU, you can listen to verb conjugations used in various situations by native speakers in authentic videos.

 

We recommend checking out your current German learning level before diving into any of these resources.

That way, you know where to start, and you won’t get frustrated before you get your feet wet.

Good luck with your German verb practice!

And One More Thing...

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