Sein Conjugation: All Tenses, Explained Simply (with Examples)

Sein is one of the first verbs every German learner meets, one of the most useful, and the most irregular of them all. It means “to be”, you'll lean on it constantly for who you are, where you're from and how you feel, and on top of all that it does a second job most learners don't see coming: it's the auxiliary that builds the past tense of verbs of movement. Ich bin gegangen, er ist gefahren, wir sind angekommen. Miss that second job and your German past tense breaks in a very noticeable way.

Don't worry. By the end of this guide you'll have every tense of sein laid out in clean tables, with example sentences for each, plus the one rule that tells you exactly when to reach for sein instead of haben. But first, the hack that saves you weeks of work.

The Sein Conjugation Hack: Learn These First

Here's the honest truth about conjugation tables: you do not need to memorise every tense of sein before you can use it in real conversation. Native-sounding beginners lean on a tiny handful of forms, and sein ‘s present tense is one of the very first things you should drill until it's automatic.

If you learn nothing else today, learn the present tense (Präsens) of sein by heart:

ich bin (“I am”), du bist (“you are”), er/sie/es ist (“he/she/it is”), wir sind (“we are”), ihr seid (“you all are”), sie/Sie sind (“they are” / “you are”, formal)

That single row of six words will carry you through introductions, descriptions, where you're from, your job and your mood. Add the Präteritum ( ich war, “I was”) for talking about the past, and you've covered the vast majority of everyday speech. Everything below that is for rounding out your German over time, not for blocking you today.

Right, now let's build the full picture.

Sein at a Glance

Infinitive

sein

Partizip II (past participle)

gewesen

Perfekt auxiliary

sein (yes, sein uses itself)

English meaning

“to be”

Verb type

irregular (strong, suppletive)

A quick note on the pronouns I'll use in every table:

German

English

ich

I

du

you (informal singular)

er / sie / es

he / she / it

wir

we

ihr

you all (informal plural)

sie / Sie

they / you (formal, singular & plural)

Sein Conjugation: Simple Tenses (Präsens & Präteritum)

German only has two simple (one-word) tenses, and sein is irregular in both of them.

Pronoun

Präsens

Präteritum

ich

bin

war

du

bist

warst

er/sie/es

ist

war

wir

sind

waren

ihr

seid

wart

sie/Sie

sind

waren

Präsens – Ich bin Ire. – “I am Irish.”

Präteritum – Ich war letztes Jahr in Berlin. – “I was in Berlin last year.”

One handy quirk: with most German verbs, spoken conversation prefers the Perfekt ( ich habe gemacht ) over the Präteritum, which sounds a bit bookish. Sein is the big exception. Ich war is what Germans actually say out loud, in speech and in writing alike, so it's worth learning solidly rather than treating it as “just for stories”.

Sein Conjugation: Compound Tenses

These are all built with an auxiliary: the Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt use a form of sein plus the past participle gewesen, while the Futur tenses use werden plus an infinitive. And here's the twist that trips up learners coming from Spanish or French: sein ‘s own auxiliary in the Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt is sein, not haben. Ich bin gewesen, not ich habe gewesen.

Pronoun

Perfekt

Plusquamperfekt

Futur I

Futur II

ich

bin gewesen

war gewesen

werde sein

werde gewesen sein

du

bist gewesen

warst gewesen

wirst sein

wirst gewesen sein

er/sie/es

ist gewesen

war gewesen

wird sein

wird gewesen sein

wir

sind gewesen

waren gewesen

werden sein

werden gewesen sein

ihr

seid gewesen

wart gewesen

werdet sein

werdet gewesen sein

sie/Sie

sind gewesen

waren gewesen

werden sein

werden gewesen sein

Perfekt – Ich bin noch nie in Japan gewesen. – “I have never been to Japan.”

Plusquamperfekt – Bevor ich nach Berlin zog, war ich noch nie im Ausland gewesen. – “Before I moved to Berlin, I had never been abroad.”

Futur I – Nächstes Jahr werde ich dreißig sein. – “Next year I'll be thirty.”

Futur II – Bis Mitternacht werden wir schon zu Hause gewesen sein. – “By midnight we'll already have been home.”

In practice, Germans use the Präsens with a time word ( morgen bin ich… ) far more often than the Futur tenses above, but you'll meet both, especially Futur I, so it's worth recognising.

Sein Conjugation: Konjunktiv

The Konjunktiv is German's mood for hypotheticals, wishes and reported speech. With sein you'll use one of these two forms constantly, and the other only occasionally.

Konjunktiv II is the everyday one, your “would be” and “if I were” form:

Pronoun

Konjunktiv II

ich

wäre

du

wärst

er/sie/es

wäre

wir

wären

ihr

wärt

sie/Sie

wären

Wenn ich reich wäre, würde ich um die Welt reisen. – “If I were rich, I'd travel the world.”

Das wäre toll! – “That would be great!”

Konjunktiv I shows up almost exclusively in reported speech, the kind of “he said that…” construction you meet in news reports and formal writing:

Pronoun

Konjunktiv I

ich

sei

du

seist

er/sie/es

sei

wir

seien

ihr

seiet

sie/Sie

seien

Er sagte, er sei müde. – “He said (that) he was tired.”

Learn wäre first and thoroughly, you'll reach for it constantly. Sei and its family are worth recognising when you read the news, but you'll rarely need to produce them yourself in conversation.

Sein Conjugation: Imperativ (Commands)

Telling someone to “be” something ( be quiet, be careful ) uses the imperative.

Pronoun

Imperative

du

sei!

wir

seien wir!

ihr

seid!

Sie

seien Sie!

Sei vorsichtig! – “Be careful!”

Seien wir ehrlich. – “Let's be honest.”

When to Use Sein

Sein has two completely different jobs in German, and the second one is where learners come unstuck.

Job one: the linking verb (“copula”). This is the straightforward one, and if you've studied Spanish you'll actually find German easier here: there's no ser / estar split to worry about. One verb, sein, covers identity, description, origin and mood alike:

Ich bin Lehrer. – “I am a teacher.” (occupation)

Sie ist müde. – “She is tired.” (state, no separate verb needed)

Wir sind aus Irland. – “We're from Ireland.” (origin)

Das Auto ist rot. – “The car is red.” (description)

Job two, and the one that really matters: the Perfekt auxiliary for verbs of movement and change of state. Most German verbs build their Perfekt with haben ( ich habe gemacht, ich habe gegessen ). But verbs describing movement from A to B ( gehen, fahren, kommen, fliegen, laufen ) or a change of state ( werden, sterben, wachsen, aufwachen ) take sein instead:

Ich bin gestern ins Kino gegangen. – “I went to the cinema yesterday.”

Er ist letztes Jahr gestorben. – “He died last year.”

Compare that to a non-motion verb, which stays with haben: Ich habe das Buch gelesen (“I have read the book”). And watch for verbs like fahren that can go either way depending on meaning: Er hat das Auto gefahren (“He drove the car”, transitive, haben ) versus Er ist nach Hause gefahren (“He drove home”, motion, sein ). This sein -versus- haben choice is the single most useful grammar rule to internalise from this whole page.

Why Is Sein So Irregular?

If sein ‘s forms look like they were stitched together from three different verbs, that's because they were. Linguists call this suppletion, and sein is a textbook case, built from three separate Indo-European roots that never merged into one regular pattern:

The b- forms ( bin, bist ) come from an old root also behind English “be”.

The s- forms ( ist, sind, sei, seien ) come from the root behind English “is” and Latin est.

The w- forms ( war, gewesen ) come from the root behind English “was” and “were”.

If that sounds familiar, it's because English does exactly the same thing with “am, is, are, was, were, be”. You've actually been using a suppletive verb your whole life without noticing, so sein ‘s chaos is far more familiar than it first looks.

Common Mistakes with Sein

Using haben inste…