The most common German verbs are the handful that frequency puts first: sein (to be), haben (to have), werden (to become), machen (to do or make), können (can), wollen (to want), gehen (to go), kommen (to come), sagen (to say), and sehen (to see). Those ten cover most of what gets said in a normal day. Vocabcord's frequency-ranked German corpus holds 110 verb entries at level A1 and just 12 at C2, and two features make the German list its own: verbs that split their prefix off mid-sentence, and one verb, werden, that does three unrelated jobs. Here is the ladder, level by level, with native audio on the core.
Why frequency decides the list
A small set of verbs carries most of any conversation, and the drop-off after that set is steep. Learn the twenty verbs everyone actually uses and you can already follow a conversation; learn the next two hundred and you gain far less per verb. Vocabcord ranks its corpus on the New General Service List, a research-grade frequency backbone, and grades every entry from A1 to C2, so the workhorse verbs arrive first.
The German numbers follow the same shape we have measured in every language on the site. Within the 33,233-phrase corpus, the German verb sets hold 341 entries: 110 at A1, 50 at A2, 114 at B1, 35 at B2, 20 at C1, and 12 at C2. A1 and A2 together hold 160 of those 341 entries, 47% of the whole ladder, and A1 alone runs about nine times the size of C2. The climb gets steep fast, which means the payoff arrives early too.
The core (A1)
Sein and haben are the two most common German verbs, and they moonlight as grammar too: German builds its perfect tense on one or the other, so ich bin gegangen (I have gone) and ich habe gesehen (I have seen) both lean on a verb from this table before the real verb even shows up. Most verbs take haben; a smaller group built on movement or a change of state, like gehen and kommen, takes sein instead. Add machen, können, wollen, sagen, sehen, geben, nehmen, wissen, and sprechen, and you hold the A1 core in the table below, each row with audio.
| German | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| sein | be | She is a doctor. |
| haben | have | I have two cats. |
| werden | become | She became a doctor. |
| machen | do | What are you doing? |
| können | can | I can swim. |
| wollen | want | I want some coffee. |
| gehen | go | I go to work. |
| kommen | come | Come with me. |
| sagen | say | What did you say? |
| sehen | see | I see you. |
| geben | give | Give me your hand. |
| nehmen | take | Take this with you. |
| wissen | know | I know your sister. |
| sprechen | speak | Speak slowly, please. |
The phrasal-verb story, run in reverse
English builds meaning by bolting a particle onto a verb: wake up, get up, call up, write down. German has the same idea, but the mechanics flip. The prefix glues to the front of the infinitive (aufwachen, aufstehen, anrufen, aufschreiben), then in a normal sentence it unglues and travels to the very end of the clause: Ich wache um sechs Uhr auf (I wake up at six), Der Film fängt um acht an (the film starts at eight), Bieg hier links ab (turn left here). The verb and its particle can end up a whole sentence apart, and a listener has to hold the sentence open until the prefix lands.
The past tense adds one more twist: the prefix does not just reattach, it wraps around the usual ge- marker instead of sitting in front of it. Ankommen (to arrive) becomes angekommen, not geankommen. Once you notice the pattern, an unfamiliar German verb with a short prefix on the front is rarely a new idea to learn, just a familiar one wearing a detachable piece.
Werden: one verb, three jobs
Werden means to become on its own (sie wurde Ärztin, she became a doctor), but that is only its first job. Put it in front of an infinitive and it builds the future tense: ich werde anrufen is I will call, formed the same way English uses will. Put it in front of a past participle instead and it builds the passive voice: die Tür wird geschlossen is the door is being closed, done by werden rather than by German's version of a to-be verb.
No other verb on this list works that hard. Learning to recognise which of the three jobs werden is doing in a given sentence, become, will happen, or is being done, is one of the more useful single skills in German grammar, and it rests entirely on one A1 verb you already know.
B1: the bulge, and where verbs turn transactional
B1 is the largest tier on the ladder at 114 entries, bigger than A1 and more than triple B2. This is where the corpus shifts from describing the world to negotiating it: versuchen (attempt), vermeiden (avoid), erlauben (allow), sich weigern (refuse), anbieten (offer), erfordern (require), verlangen (demand). These are the verbs of requests, permissions, and disagreements, the vocabulary that shows up once you can already survive a day and start actually dealing with people in it.
B2 to C2: reasoning verbs, then familiar pieces at the top
From B2 the sets shrink fast (35 at B2, 20 at C1, 12 at C2) and turn analytical: bewerten (evaluate), interpretieren (interpret), anerkennen (acknowledge) at B2; erhärten (corroborate), zusammenführen (synthesise), hervorheben (accentuate) at C1.
Even at C2, German keeps handing you pieces you already recognise. Auslöschen (to efface) is built from aus (out) plus the everyday verb löschen (to erase or extinguish); verschärfen (to exacerbate) is ver- plus schärfen (to sharpen). And the set holds a genuine curiosity: umgehen means to circumvent, but only when the stress sits on the second half and the prefix stays glued on. Stress the first half instead and the same spelling, umgehen, splits apart to mean something far more literal: to go around. One word, two grammars, and the difference is entirely in how you say it.
How to keep the ladder without a study schedule
A frequency-ranked list only helps if each verb resurfaces before it fades, and that resurfacing is the part most people never get around to scheduling. Vocabcord does the scheduling instead: every time you plug in your phone to charge, one phrase plays out loud, chosen from your level and spaced by how well you already know it. The verbs on this page arrive one connect at a time, spoken aloud, while your phone does what it was already going to do. Get Vocabcord on the App Store and start with sein and haben today.
Common questions
What are the most common German verbs?
Sein (to be), haben (to have), werden (to become), machen (to do or make), können (can), wollen (to want), gehen (to go), kommen (to come), sagen (to say), and sehen (to see). Sein and haben also build the perfect tense for almost every other verb, so they turn up inside sentences that are not officially about them at all.
How many German verbs do you need to know for everyday conversation?
Fewer than most learners assume. Vocabcord's frequency-graded German corpus places 110 verb entries at A1 and 50 more at A2, and that combined set of 160 covers the bulk of daily speech. The full ladder to C2 totals 341 verb entries, a finishable list rather than an open-ended one.
Are there phrasal verbs in German?
Yes, but built the opposite way round from English. German attaches a prefix to the front of the infinitive, such as aufwachen (wake up) or anrufen (call up), then sends that prefix to the end of the sentence in normal use: ich wache auf, ich rufe dich an. In the past participle the prefix wraps around ge- instead, so ankommen becomes angekommen.
What is a separable verb in German?
A verb built from a prefix plus a base verb, where the prefix detaches and moves to the end of the clause in present and past tense but stays attached in the infinitive and in commands directed at the whole verb. Aufstehen (get up) is one: the dictionary form is one word, but a sentence using it splits into ich stehe um sieben auf.
What does werden mean in German?
It depends on what follows it. Alone or with a noun, werden means to become (sie wurde Ärztin, she became a doctor). Before an infinitive it builds the future tense (ich werde anrufen, I will call). Before a past participle it builds the passive voice (die Tür wird geschlossen, the door is being closed). Same verb, three different jobs, decided entirely by what comes after it.
