KS4 · German · Year 11
Das Wattenmeer: present tense weak and strong verbs, reflexives
My neighbourhood: Mein Wohnort
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IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can use a range of weak, strong and reflexive verbs in the present tense to understand texts about and to describe new places.
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Das Wattenmeer: present tense weak and strong verbs, reflexives: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can use a range of weak, strong and reflexive verbs in the present tense to understand texts about and to describe new places.
Key learning points
- Weak verbs in the present tense follow a regular pattern of changes, like 'lernen'.
- Strong verbs in the present tense change their vowel in the verb stem in the 'du' and 'er, sie, es' forms.
- Strong verb stem changes in the present tense are: e to i, e to ie, and a to ä.
- Use reflexive pronouns with reflexive verbs. They often relate the action to the subject of the sentence.
- Some verbs have a different meaning when they are used as reflexive verbs, e.g., ‘anziehen’ and ‘sich anziehen’.
Words to know
- weak verb
- a verb that follows a regular pattern of changes
- strong verb (present tense)
- a verb which changes its vowel in the verb stem of some of its forms
- reflexive
- describes an action where the subject and object of the verb are the same, used with reflexive pronouns
Common mistakes
Verbs have the same meaning whether they are used reflexively or non-reflexively.
Some verbs have the same or similar meanings when used reflexively and non-reflexively, e.g. nennen, to call; sich nennen, to call oneself. However, some verbs completely change their meaning, e.g. anziehen, to attract; sich anziehen, to get dressed.
For parents, carers and teachers
- As a follow-on to Task A1, and to consolidate the new vocabulary, students could make up their own true/false statements about a place they are familiar with, or based on a photo, for their peers to answer.