Strong Verbs

This lesson will examine strong verbs.

What Are Strong Verbs?

As opposed to weak verbs, which add a /d/, /t/, or /ð/ sound in their simple past, strong verbs mark their simple past tense with a change to the vowel in the verb's stem, a phenomenon known as ablaut.

Example 1: Write -> Wrote Example 2: Speak -> Spoke

Although ablaut may seem similar to umlaut, they are not the same. Ablaut is not and was never caused by the presence of a letter. Rather, ablaut is simply the way the past tense has been created in some verbs in germanic languaegs since the beginning. In addition, there is no rule for albuat. Every word's past must simply be memorized.