German-for-English-Speakers/verbs/the-konjunktiv-moods.md

---
title: "The Konjunktiv Moods"
description: "German Konjunktiv I (reported speech) and Konjunktiv II (conditional/subjunctive) — endings, formation, and the full conjugation table for auxiliary and modal verbs."
source: "https://germanforenglishspeakers.com/verbs/the-konjunktiv-moods"
crawled: "2026-06-30"
---

# The Konjunktiv Moods

Again: the _Konjunktiv I_ mood is fairly uncommon and you shouldn't spend too much time on it. At most, it can be mildly helpful to recognize it when reading the newspaper. It's used for reported speech (without quotation marks) in a relatively formal setting: _According to a witness, the robbers **escaped** in a blue van._ It's rarely used in informal settings; in a sentence like _My sister says her friends **will meet** us at the restaurant at 8_, you just use the ordinary (indicative) present or future tense.

The endings for the present _Konjunktiv I_ are like those of the strong verb present tense (V.3) with a few extra Es, and with _no stem changes_: even a strong, mixed or modal verb just takes the normal infinitive stem. _Sein_ is the only irregular verb in the _Konjunktiv I_ (see below).

Past tense statements are formed like the _Perfekt_, only with _haben/sein_ in the _Konjunktiv I_ instead of the normal present tense. Likewise, the future tenses are formed with _werden_ in the _Konjunktiv I_.

**Konjunktiv I** (using _kaufen_ as example, plus auxiliary verbs)

| | Person | kaufen (KI) | haben | sein | werden |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **singular** | 1st (ich) | kaufe | habe | sei | werde |
| | 2nd (du) | kauf**e**st | hab**e**st | seist | werd**e**st |
| | 3rd (er/sie/es) | kauf**e** | hab**e** | sei | werd**e** |
| **plural** | 1st (wir) | kaufen | haben | seien | werden |
| | 2nd (ihr) | kauf**e**t | hab**e**t | seit | werd**e**t |
| | 3rd (sie/Sie) | kaufen | haben | seien | werden |

You may have noticed that some of the above forms are identical to the normal (indicative) present tense – _ich kaufe_, for example. In these cases it's common to use the _Konjunktiv II_ forms instead (coming up next) to avoid confusion.

In practice, the _Konjunktiv I_ is mostly used in the third person. You are most likely to notice it in a news article in the form of _sei_ where you'd expect _ist_, or _habe_ where you'd expect _hat._

The **Konjunktiv II** mood is much more common than the _Konjunktiv I_. It's used to express wishes, desires, speculation, conditionality, and other "unreal" conditions, and it usually translates in English with words like _were_, _would_, or _could_:

_If I **were** rich, I **would** buy it._ Wenn ich reich **wäre**, **würde** ich es kaufen.

There are three ways to form the _Konjunktiv II_:

1.  For weak verbs, it's the same as the (indicative) _Präteritum_ (given in V.3)
2.  For non-weak verbs (aux., modal, mixed, strong), it's the simple past stem with an added umlaut and those same –e endings from the _Konjunktiv I_ (above)
3.  BUT for certain strong verbs, the vowel in that past stem is conventionally replaced with a _ü_; for example, the KII of "helfen" is not _hälfen_ from the past stem _half_, but rather _hülfen_

Sounds like a nightmare to learn, right? But you probably don't have to. Because in practice, the _only_ verbs that are always conjugated in the _Konjunktiv II_ are the modal and auxiliary verbs. Once you've learned their subjunctive forms, you can just use those forms with the infinitives or participles of other verbs. Notice that _sollen_ and _wollen_ are the only exceptions to rule #2 above, in that they don't get the umlaut:

**Konjunktiv II** — auxiliary and modal verbs

| Person | sein | haben | werden | dürfen | können | mögen | müssen | sollen | wollen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ich | w**ä**re | h**ä**tte | w**ü**rde | dürfte | könnte | möchte | müsste | sollte | wollte |
| du | w**ä**rest | h**ä**ttest | w**ü**rdest | dürftest | könntest | möchtest | müsstest | solltest | wolltest |
| er/sie/es | w**ä**re | h**ä**tte | w**ü**rde | dürfte | könnte | möchte | müsste | sollte | wollte |
| wir | w**ä**ren | h**ä**tten | w**ü**rden | dürften | könnten | möchten | müssten | sollten | wollten |
| ihr | w**ä**ret | h**ä**ttet | w**ü**rdet | dürftet | könntet | möchtet | müsstet | solltet | wolltet |
| sie/Sie | w**ä**ren | h**ä**tten | w**ü**rden | dürften | könnten | möchten | müssten | sollten | wollten |

The main one you'll use is _werden_, which works like _would_ in English:

**_Would_** _you **help** me with this?_
**Würdest** du mir damit **helfen**?

There are a few strong verbs that are occasionally used in the _Konjunktiv II_, but as a foreign speaker, you _really_ don't need to worry about them: just use the _werden_ form for everything except the nine verbs in the table above.

One of the most common forms in that table is _möchten_ (would like), from _mögen_ (to like); it's used for ordering in restaurants (_Ich möchte einen Kaffee_) and other polite requests, as well as more general wishes and desires. In fact it's so common that it's often introduced, confusingly, as a seventh modal verb independent from _mögen_. If you've learned it that way, then now you know the truth.

[Continue to next section >>](/verbs/the-imperative-mood.md)