sollen
Meaning in English: should, to be supposed to
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Was sollen wir zur Party mitbringen?
What should we bring to the party?
Forms of sollen 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 sollen are also in the top 5,000:
Morgen soll es wieder regnen.
It's supposed to rain again tomorrow.
Ich sollte mal wieder zum Arzt gehen.
I really ought to go to the doctor again.
Wir sollten langsam nach Hause gehen.
We should head home soon.
Sie sagte, ich solle mich beeilen.
She said I should hurry.
Du solltest mehr Wasser trinken.
You should drink more water.
How common is sollen?
sollen is number 155 of the 5,000 most common German words. In the texts the list is counted from it appears 555 times per million words — about once every 1,800 words. Its most frequent form is soll (#87).
Know every word down to this one and you recognise about 48% of the words in an ordinary German text. A2 means an elementary word, usually learned in the first year.
Next to it in the frequency list
In these word lists
- The 500 most common German words#155
- The 1,000 most common German words#155
- The 5,000 most common German words#155
- The most common German verbs#26
- German A2 vocabulary#23
Translations, levels and examples were written with AI help and are awaiting review by a native speaker — how the list was made.