German GrammarPod

The future tense & the verb werden

09.30.2007 - By LauraPlay

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Hallo all, It's been longer than I intended yet again, but I've finally managed to finish another episode of German GrammarPod. This episode is about the future tense and also about the verb werden in general. The future tense is pretty simple in German. Most of the time you can just use the present tense form. But where this would be ambiguous, you add the verb werden (conjugated into one of its present tense forms) in the same way English adds the verb will to make the future tense. Werden also has another couple of important uses. When used as a main verb instead of an auxiliary verb, then it means to become or a related verb. It also has another use as an auxiliary verb: instead of the future, it can be used to create the passive. Whether it's being used to form the future or the passive can be seen from the form of the main verb that's used with it. When it's used to mean the future, then the main verb will be in the infinitive. If it's a passive, then the main verb will be in the form of a past participle. To listen to the podcast directly on your computer, click here.

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