You learned that to conjugate a verb with a subject in the present tense, you take the stem of the verb and add to it the appropriate ending. Review the diagram:

You also learned the endings to the verb stems in the present tense. The ending you use depends on the subject of the sentence. Review the chart:

	Singular	Plural
First Person Talking about yourself or yourself and others in your group.	Ich spiel - e	Wir spiel - en
Second Person, Informal Talking to someone, or a group of people. These people could be your friends, siblings, animals, children, parents, anyone you are on intimate terms with.	du spiel - st	ihr spiel - t
Third Person Talking about someone or a group of people.	er spiel - t sie es	sie spiel - en
Second Person, Formal Talking to someone or a group of people. These are people you are not on intimate terms with: adults you don't know, people in power, teachers/professors, etc.	Sie spiel - en.

There are some verbs you have learned that are different from this pattern. Four examples come to mind:

• sein - to be
• haben - to have
• wissen - to know
• the Modal Verbs.
• werden

Review the conjugations of these verbs.

Now we examine another group of verbs. These groups have the same endings as the regular verb conjugations (unlike the modals), but they experience a stem-vowel change in two of their forms:

• the second person singular du form
• the third person singular er, sie, es form.

Here are two lists of verbs that experience a stem-vowel change in the present tense conjugations:

a (au) ä (äu)	e i or ie
fahren (ä) - to travel verlassen (ä) - to leave backen (ä) - to bake laufen (äu) - to run gefallen (ä) - to be pleasing to schlafen (ä) - to sleep waschen (ä) - to wash	sehen (ie) - to see lesen (ie) - to read nehmen (i) - to take sprechen (i) - to speak vergessen(i) - to forget essen (i) - to eat geben (i) - to give

The vowels in parantheses (ie), (ä), etc. indicate that in the 2nd and 3rd person singular forms, the stem-vowel changes. The other forms are conjugated regularly, like spielen above.

Examine the conjugation of the following irregular verb lesen. Let's use the verbal phrase einen Roman lesen, "to read a novel."

einen Roman lesen (ie)
Singular	Plural
Ich lese einen Roman.	Wir lesen einen Roman.
Du liest einen Roman.	Ihr lest einen Roman.
Er/Sie/Es liest einen Roman.	Sie lesen einen Roman.
Sie (2nd. per.formal) lesen einen Roman.

Normally the stem of lesen would be les-. In the du- and er/sie/es- forms, however, the stem vowel changes to lies-; the regular endings are still used. Another example with the verbal phrase nach Österreich fahren:

nach Österreich fahren (ä)
Singular	Plural
Ich fahre nach Österreich.	Wir fahren nach Österreich.
Du fährst nach Österreich.	Ihr fahrt nach Österreich.
Er/Sie/Es fährt nach Österreich.	Sie fahren nach Österreich.
Sie (2nd. per.formal) fahren nach Österreich.

Try this exercise before doing the writing assignment below: Verbs with Stem-Vowel Changes

Now a try a little exercise using these stem-vowel change verbs. They also referred to as irregular verbs or strong verbs because of the vocalic changes taking place when the infinitive is conjugated.

Assignment