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Each and every one is a key that unlocks new German expressions and grammar patterns.
“Great!” says the innocent German language learner. “I have less vocabulary to learn! I’ll be fluent in no time.”
Not so fast, my friend. Many German vocab words have a plethora of uses and meanings. Understanding the language requires an understanding of
context.
For example, context is what helps you know whether someone’s talking about their boyfriend (Freund) or their friend (also Freund). You also need to
note inflection (übersetzen means to translate, while übersetzen means to travel by ferry across a river, but only when given a different syllabic emphasis).
Sometime at the beginning of B-levels, you’ll start to see this word cropping up everywhere. You’ll learn that it’s used for passive constructions. Then
you’ll learn it’s used for future tense. And subjunctive. And…the list goes on.
But never fear. Master the 7 distinct uses of werden below, and you’ll open the door to seven brand new grammatical forms and seven new methods of
self-expression in German.
ich werde
du wirst
Sie werden
er wird
wir werden
ihr werdet
Sie werden
ich wurde
du wurdest
Sie wurden
er wurde
wir wurden
ihr wurdet
Sie wurden
ich würde
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du würdest
Sie würden
er würde
wir würden
ihr würdet
Sie würden
Got all that? Let’s move on and learn how we use these different forms.
1. Werden as a Vollverb
What does werden mean when you use it in its normal, present tense form? Werden means “to become.”
The incautious German student might think that bekommen means “to become,” but be careful!
If you want to indicate that something’s in the process of becoming something else, werden is the word for you. If you want to say you’re getting sick, use
werden.
If you want to say someone’s starting a new career, say, becoming a doctor, usewerden.
Er wird Arzt.
He’s becoming a doctor.
If you want to talk about something that became something else in the near past, you can use theParticip II of werden to create the present perfect tense
(Perfekt): geworden.
Since werden is a word that involves a change, make sure to use sein, not haben to form the present perfect tense.
If you want to talk about something that became something else in the simple past (which is often used in literary forms or history books), use the
Präteritum forms above.
Remember, a passive construction is a construction where the subject of the sentence is acted upon by something else, rather than the subject of the
sentence performing an action. An English example: The house was built.
To form a present tense passive construction in German, use the present tense of werden plus the Particip II version of a verb. For example:
To form a past passive construction in German, you could use either Perfekt or Präteritum. In Perfekt, use the Particip II of the verb plus worden. For
example:
In Präteritum, or literary past tense, you would use the Präteritum version of werden plus the Particip II. For example:
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3. Werden in Konjunktiv II form
Now let’s talk about how you can use werden to express subjunctive, or conditional, forms.
Remember the Konjunctiv II conjugations in the first section of this post? Refresh your memory on those, because you’ll need them to create the
Konjunctiv.
Basically, these constructions are used to express something that isn’t real: a wish, a hope or an unreal situation. How do you form these constructions?
There are eight verbs that have their own Konjunctiv II forms, but the rest of the time you use the Konjunctiv II form of werden, plus the infinitive of a verb.
(You can read more about those verbs with their own Konjuntiv II forms them here.) Here are some examples:
Werden can also be used with the infinitive form of a verb to create four different structures. The first is not very important:
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Im August werde ich in den USA Urlaub machen.
In August, I am going to the USA for a vacation.
Why is the future tense the least important use of werden plus infinitive? Because Germans don’t actually use the future tense all that often. It’s much
more common for Germans to simply use present tense and imply future using context clues, such as in the following example:
But it’s still important to know the future tense and to know how to differentiate it from the other forms ofwerden plus infinitive.
So how do you distinguish a sentence that’s talking about a certainty from a sentence that’s talking about the future? It’s all about the context words,
words that mean “definitely” or “for sure.” Look for the following words as indicators of certainty:
sicher
surely
bestimmt
definitely
sicherlich
certainly
gewiss
assuredly
mit Sicherheit
with certainty
garantiert
guaranteed
A sentence construction that’s used for probabilities and certainties. Sounds confusing, right? But don’t panic! Look for these context words that mean
probably, and you’ll be able to spot a sentence like this in no time.
vermutlich
presumably
wahrscheinlich
probably
vielleicht
maybe
möglicherweise
possibly
wohl
surely
This form of command is stricter and more official than an Imperativ command.
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Werden has a lot of uses, and it can be confusing to try to figure them out. But with some studying and a lot of practice, you’ll be well on your way to
knowing all these different forms.
If you’re on board with that, you’ll definitely want to check out FluentU.
FluentU takes great videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into language learning experiences so that you
can learn real German as people really speak it.
A quick look will give you an idea of the diverse content you can find on FluentU:
Watching a fun video, but having trouble understanding it? FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts.
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You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you
see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.
And FluentU isn’t just for watching videos. It’s a complete platform for learning. It’s designed to effectively teach you all the vocabulary from any video.
Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
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The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and it recommends you examples and videos based on the words you’ve
already learned. This is a level of personalization that hasn’t been done before.
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If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn German with real-world videos.
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