Irregular verbs
Yep, irregular verbs. As lazy as I am, I quickly realized I couldn’t afford to avoid them.
These verbs are irregular because of their intensive use. As they will frequently pop up in conversations, they make for an excellent vocabular basis for lazy people!
One trick: they are extremely close to their english equivalents, so learning them should be less painful than you thought!
E.g.:
find, found, found - finden, fand, gefunden
come came come - kommen, kam, gekommen
2 important tips:
- Once you know the declination of the root verb, its variations behave similarly:
sprechen, besprechen, versprechen, ansprechen, …
kommen, bekommen, ankommen, … - Nouns derived from irregular verbs are often masculine:
der Vertrieb, der Lauf, der Aufstand, der Schlaf, der Flug, der Ruf
Beware of false friends like become / bekommen (=receive)!
This listing will give you an excellent start into irregular (strong) verbs: http://german.about.com/library/blstrverbs.htm
If you want to further expand your vocabulary, you should check this list of the ~100 most frequent verbs that you’ll definitely need on a daily basis (source: Die Konjugation):
