Polyglot Dictionary

sein

/zaɪ̯n/

verb A1

der (masc.) die (fem.) das (neut.)

Underline = a spelling pattern that usually signals that gender.

V Register Neutral Era Current Frequency Core Domain General Tone Neutral

Forms

ich
bin
du
bist
er/sie/es
ist
wir/sie/Sie
sind
ihr
seid
past (er)
war
perfect
ist gewesen

Meaning

  1. to be

    One of only two verbs (with haben) that forms its own perfect tense with sein rather than haben — "ist gewesen," not "hat gewesen." Its present-tense forms are irregular in every single person, so they're worth learning as a set rather than derived from a pattern.

V Category State Concreteness Concrete Agency Voluntary Duration Durative Transitivity Transitive

Practice

1 What does sein mean?

2 Fill the gap: Ich ___ müde.

3 Which fingerprint chart matches sein?

See also

verbirregularcore-vocabularygrammar

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