18 Infinitives

Infinitives

In modern English infinitives (such as to go, to swim, etc.) are preceded by ‘to’, but about twelve hundred years ago instead of ‘to’ in front of them, they ended in -an:

• • • •  (Old English) singan = to sing
        

Over time, the -an mostly disappeared, but you can still see it in some English verbs:

• • • • brighten, fasten, frighten, loosen etc.
        

Modern German is very similar to Old English in this respect, which means that all infinitives in German end in -en or sometimes in -n:

• • • • gehen = to go
      • klettern = to climb
        

Aufgabe 1. Infinitives Practice Task. Using the beginning of each German verb in brackets guess what their full forms are

1. 1. 1. 1. to run = renn____    
         2. to find = find____   
         3. to see = seh___  
         4. to bring = bring___   
         5. to go = geh___