What are strong verbs, and how can I learn them?

The term "strong verb" describes a type of German verb ('doing' word). Strong verbs are verbs which feature a vowel change in one or more of their tenses. Here is an example: Gehen - to go Inifnitive: gehen Present 3rd person singular: geht Imperfect: ging Past participle: gegangen As you can see above, the 'e' in gehen changes to an 'i' or 'a' in some of the verb's tenses. This makes it a strong verb. Knowing your strong verbs is really important as it makes a huge difference in how 'German' you sound! If you miss out the vowel change in these verbs, to a native speaker it may sound the same as it sounds to us when a young child says "I maked that" or "You eated the cake". The bad news is, there is no magic trick or rule that applies to all strong verbs. You have to put the time into learning them. The good news is, there are lots of interesting and fun ways to learn them. One method of learning them is the "verb chant". Print a whole list of these verbs off and chant your way through the list a few times. Make it as rhythmic as possible. If you start to get bored of this, keep it fun by varying the volume and speed of each verb you chant. You could start chanting at a whisper and finish at a shout! Then, start covering the verbs up and see if you can still chant through them without the help of your sheet. Another interesting way of learning them is by writing down the infinitives of all the strong verbs you want to learn on small cards. Then shuffle the cards up and pick them up one at a time. For each infinitive card you pick up, you have to say the rest of the verb as quickly as possible. If you get it right, put the card in one pile. If you get it wrong, put that card in another pile to revisit later.