The Subjunctive I in German: What is it and how to use it?

In German, the subjunctive I is used mainly in written language to report what someone said or did while allowing some uncertainty about whether what they said was true. You’ll see a lot of the subjunctive I used a lot in the German news, whether you read newspapers or listen to podcasts. For example:

In this article, we'll take a closer look at the subjunctive I (Konjunktiv I) in German. We’ll go through how to form it in different tenses, how to use it, and discuss some cases where you should use other forms of the verb instead. Let’s have a look!

In German, there are two verb forms that we call “the subjunctive”: the subjunctive I and the subjunctive II. Both used for the same broad purpose: to show some level of speculation or uncertainty about whether an action happened, will happen, or is happening.

In most contexts, you’ll probably use the subjunctive II. It’s more common, less formal, and can be used in a wider range of situations.

So, though the subjunctive II may be more common, it’s important to learn to form and use the subjunctive I as well!

The rules for forming the subjunctive I depend on the tense of the verb. You can use this mood in the present tense, past tense, future tense, and future perfect tense. The ones that you will come across most of the time are present and past, but we’ll still take a look at how to form all four of them.

In German, you’ll most often use the subjunctive I in indirect reported speech, particularly in writing.

Indirect speech is used to report on the message of what someone said or thought, without necessarily using their exact words. An example in English might be, “Marcus said he wasn’t coming.” Notice that we understand that Marcus literally said something like “I’m not coming,” but here we aren’t reporting his exact words, so this is indirect reported speech.

In German, indirect reported speech involves two parts:

1. a main clause, containing a verb of reporting sagen (meaning to say), berichten (meaning to report), or erklären (meaning to explain).

2. a subordinate clause, containing the reported speech.
   

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you’re a reporter and you hear the Foreign Secretary say:

When you go to report on her statement in your article, you might report this statement using one of the statements below:

Because it’s not a direct quote and because you’re writing, you’ll use the subjunctive I. There are two important things to note:

• The tense of the original quote is preserved: present indicative → present subjunctive I. If the original quote contained the past tense, then you might use the past subjunctive I instead.

• Why are there two versions of the reporter’s sentence? There are two versions because the conjunction dass (meaning that) is optional in German just like in English. Both versions are common. The only thing to be careful of is the word order — as with other subordinate clauses in German, the addition of the conjunction “kicks” the conjugated verb (in this case müsse) moves to the end of the sentence.

In this post, we’ve introduced you to the German subjunctive I. Here are the important points to remember:

• The subjunctive I is used primarily for indirect reported speech, specifically in written language (e.g., in news reports)

• Use the same tense in the subjunctive I that the original quote used: present, past, future and future perfect. The tenses that are most frequently used in the subjunctive I are present and past.

  • Present → Looks mostly like the present indicative, but the “you” and “he/she/it” forms have e’s added

  • Past → Formed using the present subjunctive I of haben/sein + past participle

• You will rarely ever hear the subjunctive I in spoken German, the subjunctive II is much more common there.

Ready to review? Try out our German subjunctive I practice exercises. Happy learning!