German Past Participle

The German past participle is often formed by adding the prefix -ge to the verb stem. Regular verbs end with a t and irregular verbs with en or n. Irregular verbs often undergo a change in the vowel of the verb stem. Mixed verbs end with a t but exhibit a vowel change in the stem. They are called mixed because they exhibit features of both regular and irregular verbs. Here are examples:

Regular Verbs

machen gemacht (make/made)
sagen gesagt (say/said)
spielen gespielt (play/played)
tanzen getanzt (dance/danced)
wechseln gewechselt (exchange/exchanged)

Mixed Verbs

bringen gebracht (bring/brought)
denken gedacht (think/thought)
senden gesandt (send/sent)
sitzen gesessen (sit/sat)
wissen gewusst (know/known)

Irregular Verbs (Only Prefix Added)

geben/gegeben (give/given)
kommen gekommen (come/come)
lesen gelesen (read/read)
sehen gesehen (see/seen)
schlafen geschlafen (sleep/slept)

Irregular Verbs (Stem Change)

fliegen geflogen (fly/flown)
schreiben geschrieben (write/written)
singen/gesungen (sing/sung)
trinken/getrunken (drink/drunk)
sprechen gesprochen (speak/spoken)

The past participle eaten has an epenthetic g which prevents a sequence of two vowels by inserting a consonant. This is seen in essen gegessen (eat/eaten). However, no epenthesis occurs in enden/geendet (end/ended).

The German past participle is usually formed with the prefix -ge. The rules for forming the past participle vary for regular, mixed and irregular verbs. Regular verbs are also known as weak verbs and irregular verbs as strong verbs.