Conjugating the German Verb Wissen, Meaning "to Know"

Wissen is an irregular German verb that means to know a fact. German, like many other languages, has two different verbs that can correspond to the single English verb "to know." Like Spanish, Italian and French, for example, German makes a distinction between knowing or being familiar with a person or thing ( kennen) and knowing a fact (wissen).

Wissen is often used with interrogatives: wann, wie, wo, warum, usw. For example, "Ich weiß, wo er ist." I know where he is. (information)

Conjugation

In the following chart, you will find the conjugation of the irregular German verb wissen. Although it is not a modal verb, the conjugation of wissen follows the same pattern as the modal verbs. Like the modals, and unlike normal German verbs, wissen has the same form for ich (first person sing.) and er, sie, es (third person singular).

The verb wissen is a stem-changing verb. That is to say, the infinitive's stem vowel i changes to ei in all the singular present tense forms (weiß), and to u in the past participle (gewusst). In many ways, as we said above, it behaves like a modal verb. Except for ihr wisst (formerly wißt), spelling reform has not affected wissen, so you should note that its singular forms are still spelled with an ess-zett (ß, except in Swiss German), while the plural forms use a double-s (ss).

This verb chart uses the new German spelling (die neue Rechtschreibung).

Irregular Verbs: Wissen: to know (a fact)

Sample Sentences and Idioms

Er weiß Bescheid.
He knows all about it. (He's been kept informed.)

Weißt du, wann der Bus kommt?
Do you know when the bus is coming?

Ich habe nicht Bescheid gewusst.
I didn't know a thing about it.

Wer weiß?
Who knows? 

Wissen Sie, wie spät es ist?
Do you know (have) the time? 

Ich weiß (es) nicht.
I don't know.

Weißt du, wann der Zug abfährt?
Do you know when the train is departing? 

Sie weiß immer alles besser.
She always knows better.

Nicht, dass ich wüsste.
Not as far as I know. 

Man kann nie wissen.
You (just) never know.

Er will nichts von ihr wissen.
He wants nothing to do with her. 

Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiß.
What I don't know won't hurt me.