MOST COMMON VERBS
In addition to learning the most common words of a language, as we addressed in the first chapter, it´s important to start building a foundation of the most commonly used verbs as well.
Verbs are the foundation of a sentence. Without them you would be lost, because they create meaning and they are a big part of a language.
But I´m also sure that you remember that learning all these verbs in school was pretty tiring for you and on top of everything every verb has its own conjugation patterns (changing with tense, person and mood).
Just to remind you what tenses look like and how confusing they are, follow these steps:
STEP 1: Google “French conjugation” or “German conjugation” and choose the first link that comes up. You can also do it in the language that you are learning.
STEP 2: Now you will see a page that gives you an overview of how to conjugate verbs in a certain language. Choose one verb that you see on this page and click on it.
STEP 3: Now you will see all the different forms of this specific verb and it´s very confusing, isn´t it?
Let´s now come back to our LIVE-methodology and let´s find out how would it be possible to hack this verb system without going crazy in the process.
SO how can I learn the different forms of the verbs, but at the same time simplify the process?
There are great solutions to these problems and they are an important part of our LIVE-methodology.
First you need to understand that knowing about 50 of the most commonly used verbs is already enough to start expressing a language with ease.
And it´s quite logical as well. As with most commonly used words, there are only a number of verbs that we use on a daily basis to fully express ourselves. And our experience shows that 50 of the most common verbs will already give you the feeling that you express yourself with confidence.
To find the most common verbs of your language follow these steps:
STEP 1: Open Google and write for example “Most common verbs in Italian” and click “search”.
STEP 2: Now you will see many links with the most common verbs of your chosen language. Open one of the first links.
Now you will see the list of the verbs. It´s almost always possible to click on the verbs and see all the tense forms. This is great!
STEP 3: To start building a strong foundation in your language we advise you to print out the first 5-10 pages of verbs and start learning them.
Therefore, if you´re a beginner it´s very important to learn the most commonly used verbs simultaneously with the most commonly used words. And you should set as your goal the 50 most commonly used verbs.
If you´re at an intermediate level, then look at the list of most commonly used verbs and make sure that you know all of them.
If some of them are new to you, then make sure that you add them to your memorizing program and memorize them together with the most commonly used words.
Okay, so now you know which verbs you should learn. The next thing to do is go to the most commonly used verbs page, either via our web-environment at or by finding it yourself, and click on one of the verbs.
You will see that it also has all its tense forms and everything else on this page and it may be a little confusing, if you´re not used to conjugation tables. But let´s simplify it all a little.
For example if I take the Spanish verb QUERER (to love, to like) then I can see that the present tense looks like this:
Yo quiero - I like
Tu quieres - You like
El/Ella quiere - He/She likes
Nosotros queremos - We like
Vosotros queréis - You like
Ellos/Ellas quieren - They like
It´s an important and most used tense of a language ‒ the present. And it would be important to know every present from of the verb QUERER, because it is indeed also in the list of the 50 most commonly used verbs in Spanish. So it makes sense.
Therefore, as the next step I would take the present tense of this verb, open my memorization program, and add all of its six forms onto a memorizing card, so that I could come back to it later on, when I´m working with the program to memorize words.
Which other tenses, apart from the present, should I learn so that it would make sense? Should I learn all of them? Or just some of them?
To answer that question, we actually need to look at science again, which shows us very clearly that only some of these tenses on the verb conjugation tables are used consistently on a daily basis, while some of them are virtually useless.
To go even further, our longtime studies show that you actually only need a very small selection of all the possible tenses to feel that you can really express yourself in the language well.
THE LIVE VERB SYSTEM
When you´re starting with a new language then conjugating verbs can be gruelling, because there are