sein
Meaning in English: to be; his, its
Add sein and its 12 forms to your reviews. Progress stays in this browser.
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Du musst morgen pünktlich sein.
You have to be on time tomorrow.
Forms of sein in the top 5,000
German verbs change their ending with the person and tense, and each form is counted on its own. These forms of sein are also in the top 5,000:
Meine Wohnung ist leider ziemlich klein.
My flat is unfortunately quite small.
Wo sind denn meine Schuhe?
Where are my shoes, then?
Gestern war ich den ganzen Tag zu Hause.
Yesterday I was at home all day.
Sie sagt, das Essen sei kalt.
She says the food is cold.
Letzte Woche waren wir in Wien.
Last week we were in Vienna.
Er meint, die Karten seien schon ausverkauft.
He thinks the tickets are already sold out.
Das wäre wirklich toll!
That would be really great!
Ich bin gleich wieder da.
I'll be right back.
Bist du schon mal in Paris gewesen?
Have you ever been to Paris?
Wenn wir reich wären, würden wir viel reisen.
If we were rich, we'd travel a lot.
Wo bist du gerade?
Where are you right now?
Wo seid ihr gerade?
Where are you right now?
How common is sein?
sein is number 63 of the 5,000 most common German words. In the texts the list is counted from it appears 1,666 times per million words — about once every 600 words. Its most frequent form is ist (#12).
Know every word down to this one and you recognise about 40% of the words in an ordinary German text. A1 means a beginner word, usually met in the first weeks of learning.
Next to it in the frequency list
In these word lists
- The 100 most common German words#63
- The 500 most common German words#63
- The 1,000 most common German words#63
- The 5,000 most common German words#63
- The most common German verbs#11
- German A1 vocabulary#60
Translations, levels and examples were written with AI help and are awaiting review by a native speaker — how the list was made.