zeichnen
to draw
Zeichnen (to draw) is the German verb for drawing with a pencil, pen, or other line tool. It covers sketching, drawing a picture, and technical drawing: ein Bild zeichnen (to draw a picture), einen Kreis zeichnen (to draw a circle). It is a regular (weak) verb, but its stem ends in -chn, which adds a small spelling wrinkle.
Because the stem zeichn- ends in a consonant cluster, an extra e is inserted before the endings that would otherwise be hard to pronounce: ich zeichne, du zeichnest, er/sie/es zeichnet, wir zeichnen, ihr zeichnet, sie/Sie zeichnen. The du and er forms keep that e (zeichnest, not zeichnst). The perfect tense uses haben with the past participle gezeichnet: ich habe ein Haus gezeichnet (I drew a house).
It helps to separate zeichnen from malen (to paint). Zeichnen is about lines and is what you do with a pencil or pen, while malen involves color and a brush or crayons. A child doing a crayon picture might use either word, but a pencil sketch is always zeichnen.
Two useful related words come from this verb: die Zeichnung (the drawing) and der Zeichner (the illustrator or draftsman). In a more formal sense, zeichnen can also mean "to sign" or "to mark", which is why unterzeichnen means "to sign a document".
Pronunciation: "TSY-shnen", with the z as a "ts" sound like in English "cats", and ei as the vowel in English "eye". Stress falls on the first syllable.
English
to draw
Perfekt
ich habe gezeichnet
Partizip II
gezeichnet
Auxiliary
zeichnen appears in the following vocabulary collections:
Ich zeichne ein Haus.
I draw a house.
Verb in Position 2.
Wir zeichnen jeden Tag.
We draw every day.
Time adverb goes after the verb.
Kannst du eine Katze zeichnen?
Can you draw a cat?
Modal verb sends the main verb to the end.
- What does zeichnen mean in German?
- Zeichnen means "to draw" in German, specifically drawing with lines using a pencil or pen. It is used for sketches, pictures, and technical drawings: ich zeichne gern (I like to draw).
- How do you conjugate zeichnen in the present tense?
- Zeichnen is regular but inserts an extra e because its stem ends in a consonant cluster: ich zeichne, du zeichnest, er/sie/es zeichnet, wir zeichnen, ihr zeichnet, sie/Sie zeichnen. The du form is zeichnest, not zeichnst.
- Is zeichnen a regular or irregular verb?
- Zeichnen is a regular (weak) verb. It does not change its stem vowel, and the past participle is the predictable gezeichnet. The only twist is the inserted e in forms like zeichnest and zeichnet, which is a spelling rule, not an irregularity.
- What is the difference between zeichnen and malen?
- Zeichnen means drawing with lines, the kind of work you do with a pencil or pen. Malen means painting with color, using a brush or crayons. A pencil sketch is zeichnen; a watercolor is malen.
- What is the past participle of zeichnen?
- The past participle is gezeichnet (drawn). You use it with haben in the perfect tense: ich habe einen Baum gezeichnet (I drew a tree). The simple past form is zeichnete.