Using German Participles as Adjectives and Adverbs

As in English, the past participle of a German verb may be used as an adjective or adverb. In English,  stolen  is the past participle of the verb  to steal. The word  stolen  can be used as an adjective, as in: â€Å"Thats a  stolen  car.† Similarly, in German the past participle  gestohlen  (fromstehlen, to steal) can also be used as an adjective: â€Å"Das ist ein  gestohlenes  Auto.† The only significant difference between the ways that English and German use the past participle as an adjective is the fact that, unlike English adjectives, German adjectives must have an appropriate ending if they precede a noun. (Notice the -es  ending in the example above. More about adjective endings in  Lesson 5  and  Adjective Endings.) Of course, it also helps if you know the correct past participle forms to use. A past participle such as  interessiert  (interested) can also be used as an adverb: â€Å"Wir saheninteressiert  zu.† (â€Å"We watched  interestedly/with interest.†) Present Participles Unlike its English equivalent, the present participle in German is used almost exclusively as an adjective or adverb. For other uses, German present participles are usually replaced by nominalized verbs (verbs used as nouns) —  das Lesen  (reading),  das Schwimmen  (swimming) — to function like English gerunds, for instance. In English, the present participle has an -ingending. In German the present participle ends in -end:  weinend  (crying),  pfeifend  (whistling),schlafend  (sleeping). In German, â€Å"a  sleeping  child† is â€Å"ein  schlafendes  Kind.† As with any adjective in German, the ending must fit the grammatical context, in this case an -es  ending (neuter/das). Many present participle adjective phrases in German are translated with a relative clause or an appositive phrase in English. For example, â€Å"Der  schnell vorbeifahrende  Zug machte großen Là ¤rm,† would be, â€Å"The train, which was  quickly passing by, made a tremendous noise,† rather than the literal, â€Å"The quickly passing by train...† When used as adverbs, German present participles are treated like any other adverb, and the English translation usually places the adverb or adverbial phrase at the end: â€Å"Er kam  pfeifend  ins Zimmer.† â€Å"He came into the room  whistling.† Present participles are used more often in writing than in spoken German. Youll run across them a lot when reading books, magazines, or newspapers.