liegt

liegt is the third-person singular present tense form of the German verb liegen. The verb means to lie in the sense of being in a horizontal position or to be located somewhere. It is intransitive, meaning it does not take a direct object. For example: Die Stadt liegt am Fluss (The city lies on the river). Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch (The book lies on the table). It is common to use liegen when asking about location: Wo liegt das Hotel? (Where is the hotel located?)

Liegen is often contrasted with legen, which is transitive and means “to lay” something down. While liegen describes a state or position, legen describes an action performed on an object. For instance: Ich lege das Buch auf den Tisch (I lay the book on the table) versus Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch (The book is lying on the table).

In addition to literal location, liegt appears in idiomatic phrases such as Es liegt daran, dass … (It is due to the fact that …) and Es liegt nahe, dass … (It is likely/it is natural that …). These constructions use a set expression in which liegen conveys a notion of basis or proximity of a conclusion to a cause or likelihood.

Conjugation in the present tense is: ich liege, du liegst, er liegt, wir liegen, ihr liegt, sie liegen. The verb also forms the perfect with haben: hat gelegen.