The Perfect Tense with “haben”

Common verbs with irregular past participles

Unfortunately lots of German verbs, which are needed regularly for GCSE and beyond, have irregular past participles, which you just have to learn!

The good news is that the rules about when not to add “ge” to a past participle still apply. The other good news is that the past participle will only ever end in “t” or “en” and the majority of the irregular ones you will need will end in “en”.

The verbs are irregular because the vowel in the verb stem changes.

Here is a list of 25 irregular verbs that you will need to learn for GCSE and beyond!

Meaning Infinitive Past Participle
to begin - beginnen - begonnen
to break - brechen - gebrochen
to bring - bringen - gebracht
to think - denken - gedacht
to eat - essen - gegessen
to catch - fangen - gefangen
to find - finden - gefunden
to forget - vergessen - vergessen
to give - geben - gegeben
to win - gewinnen - gewonnen
to help - helfen - geholfen
to take - nehmen - genommen
to read - lesen - gelesen
to see - sehen - gesehen
to sleep - schlafen - geschlafen
to write - schreiben - geschrieben
to sing - singen - gesungen
to sit - sitzen - gesessen
to speak - sprechen - gesprochen
to stand - stehen - gestanden
to carry / to wear - tragen - getragen
to meet - treffen - getroffen
to drink - trinken - getrunken
to forget - vergessen - vergessen
to lose - verlieren - verloren