spielen
Meaning in English: to play
Add spielen and its 4 forms to your reviews. Progress stays in this browser.
Test my vocabularyExample
Die Kinder spielen im Garten Fußball.
The children are playing football in the garden.
Forms of spielen 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 spielen are also in the top 5,000:
Mein Bruder spielt sehr gut Gitarre.
My brother plays the guitar very well.
Wir haben den ganzen Abend Karten gespielt.
We played cards all evening.
Als Kind spielte ich Klavier.
As a child I played the piano.
Als Kinder spielten wir jeden Tag draußen.
As children we played outside every day.
How common is spielen?
spielen is number 374 of the 5,000 most common German words. In the texts the list is counted from it appears 233 times per million words — about once every 4,300 words.
Know every word down to this one and you recognise about 56% 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
- 370innerhalbwithin, inside
- 371der SonntagSunday
- 372der OktoberOctober
- 373die Hilfehelp
- 374spielento play
- 375keinenno, not any (acc. masc., dat. pl.)
- 376nächstennext; nearest
- 377der JuniJune
- 378neunew
In these word lists
- The 500 most common German words#374
- The 1,000 most common German words#374
- The 5,000 most common German words#374
- The most common German verbs#81
- German A1 vocabulary#215
Translations, levels and examples were written with AI help and are awaiting review by a native speaker — how the list was made.