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# 6 The irregular verb nehmen

You’ll now look at another common but slightly irregular verb. Table 3 shows the present tense (Präsens) of the verb nehmen (to take). As you can see, similar to essen, only the second and third person singular (du and er/sie/es) forms of nehmen are irregular.

## Table 3 The present tense of the irregular verb nehmen

nehmen |
ich nehme | wir nehmen
du nimmst | ihr nehmt
er/sie/es nimmt | Sie/sie nehmen

You can use the verb nehmen to replace the verbs essen and trinken, especially if there is a choice or you want to refer to drink and food (essen can only be used with food, trinken only with drinks, but nehmen can be used for either or both).

## Activity 7

#### Part 1

Imagine you are having breakfast at a cafe or hotel and can chose any five items from this buffet. What would you choose?

Figure 8 A breakfast table

List your choices, using the verb nehmen. Click on ‘reveal answer’ to see a model response

Was nehmen Sie?

(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

### Answer

Here is a model. Please note that your answer might be different from the model given.

Ich nehme Brot, Schinken, Käse, ein Ei und Orangensaft.

#### Part 2

Now try using other forms of the verb nehmen.

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#### Part 3

Now write your own sentences. Here are two examples for you, but you don’t have to stop there. Write some more sentences in your notebook. Or even better, come back to this activity another time, practising the verb nehmen to check that you can still remember all its different forms.

Write one sentence saying what Christina is having. Use the verb nehmen and the picture clue to help you construct your sentence.

Please note case is important.

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OpenLearn - Getting started with German 2
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