There are different categories of verbs in German. One of the rarer forms is verbs with the ending “-ieren”. After reading this article, you will know how these verbs behave and how to use them correctly. 

German verbs with “-ieren”

Most likely, you already got to know the classical German verbs. They usually end with “-en” like “schlafen”, “machen”, “singen”, “lernen” and so on. You can find a detailed explanation of how to conjugate German verbs here.

You should keep some things in mind when it comes to German verbs that end with “-ieren”. First of all, I can tell you that most of the verbs that end with “-ieren” in German are words that are not “real German.” Hence, it might not be surprising that it is a typical suffix for verbs, which are loanwords from other languages, and it stands for a verb that we formed out of a noun or adjective. Therefore, you might understand these verbs without problems most of the time, even though you meet them for the first time.

 Recommended study materials on the topic:

1. A-Grammar: Practice German grammar German (incl. answers)

2. B-Grammar: Practice German grammar German (incl. answers)

3. German self-study book for A1-B1  (incl. answers)

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Examples of verbs with -ieren

kopieren → to copy

fotografieren → to take photos

diskutieren → to discuss

telefonieren → to phone

operieren → to operate / to make a surgery

animieren → to encourage / to animate

servieren → to serve

reparieren → to repair

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How to conjugate verbs with “-ieren”

It is not very complicated to conjugate this kind of verb as the same rules apply that you already know from the general verbs.

Let’s use the verb “kopieren” as an example. To receive the verb stem, you need to remove the “-en” and therefore, you will receive “kopier-“. Now, you add usual endings to the stem:

ich studiere

du studierst

er/sie/es studiert

wir studieren

ihr studiert

sie studieren 

The past tense 

Now, you might ask yourself what you must do to use these verbs in the past tense. Also, this is not very complicated, as you will see in the following.

Präteritum (Simple Past)

Also, in the simple past, these verbs do not have any crazy exceptions, and therefore, you can form the standard version.

ich kopierte

du kopiertest

er/sie/es kopierte

wir kopierten

ihr kopiertet

sie kopierten

Perfekt (Present Perfect Simple) and Plusquamperfekt (Past Perfect Simple)

Besides the fact that you need to choose whether to use “sein” or “haben” – which you need to do for all verbs – using the German verbs with “-ieren” in both times is very easy. They do not get any prefix but only the letter “t” as a suffix for all persons, as shown in the following example.

ich habe telefoniert

du hast telefoniert

er hat telefoniert

sie hat telefoniert

es hat telefoniert

wir haben telefoniert

ihr habt telefoniert

sie haben telefoniert

Not so complicated, or?

Now that you know how to use verbs with “-ieren” at all times, you can easily integrate them into your everyday German life.

Bis bald!

Steffie

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