Top 100 German Verbs You Must Know

These 100 verbs cover the vast majority of everyday German conversation — modal and auxiliary verbs, the most common irregular and regular verbs, separable prefix verbs, and reflexive verbs. Each entry shows the infinitive, meaning, and (for irregular verbs) the present-tense er/sie/es form, since that's where most conjugation mistakes happen. Once you've worked through the list, reinforce it with our verb conjugation guide and verb exercises.

Why these 100 verbs matter

A relatively small set of verbs does most of the work in spoken German. Learning haben, sein, and the modal verbs first unlocks huge amounts of everyday conversation, and the ~60 action verbs after that cover nearly everything you'll need to talk about daily life at A1–A2 level. The remaining separable and reflexive verbs round out the list — two verb types that don't exist in quite the same way in English, so they're worth learning as their own category rather than mixing them in.

Auxiliary and modal verbs (10)

These verbs are irregular in ways that don't follow the normal patterns, and you'll use all ten of them constantly.

Most common irregular (strong) verbs (30)

Strong verbs change their stem vowel in the du and er/sie/es forms — there's no shortcut, but these 30 cover most of what you'll hear in daily conversation.

Most common regular (weak) verbs (30)

Regular verbs follow the standard -e/-st/-t/-en pattern with no stem change — the easiest 30 to conjugate on this list.

Separable prefix verbs (15)

These verbs split apart in the present tense — the prefix jumps to the end of the sentence.

Reflexive verbs (15)

Reflexive verbs need a reflexive pronoun (mich, dich, sich...) alongside the verb — a category that trips up English speakers since many English equivalents aren't reflexive at all.

7-day study plan

1. Day 1: Auxiliary and modal verbs — drill until automatic, since they appear in nearly every sentence
2. Day 2–3: Irregular verbs (15 per day) — focus on the er/sie/es stem change, since that's the pattern that's actually hard
3. Day 4–5: Regular verbs (15 per day) — easier to memorize since the pattern doesn't change
4. Day 6: Separable verbs — practice moving the prefix to the end of the sentence
5. Day 7: Reflexive verbs — practice with the correct reflexive pronoun for each subject

Common mistakes

• Forgetting the stem-vowel change in du/er/sie/es forms of irregular verbs (er nimmt, not er nehmt)
• Leaving the separable prefix attached instead of moving it to the end (Ich aufstehe ❌ → Ich stehe auf ✓)
• Dropping the reflexive pronoun, or using the wrong one for the subject (ich freue ❌ → ich freue mich ✓)
• Confusing kennen (to know people/places) with wissen (to know facts) — they're not interchangeable
• Mixing up sich vorstellen ("to introduce oneself" or "to imagine") depending on context — the reflexive pronoun's case actually changes the meaning (ich stelle mir das vor = I imagine it; ich stelle mich vor = I introduce myself)

Once these verbs feel solid, review the rules in our verb conjugation guide, then practice with verb exercises and the verb conjugator tool. For nouns, see Top 100 German Words.