siehst

Siehst is the second-person singular present tense form of the German verb sehen, meaning “to see.” It is used with informal “du” as the subject, as in Du siehst den Vogel. The present tense forms of sehen also include ich sehe, er sieht, wir sehen, ihr seht, sie sehen.

Morphology and pronunciation: In the du form, the vowel changes from e to ie, and the form ends with -st, yielding siehst. The typical pronunciation is [ziːst]. The verb sehen is one of German’s irregular or mixed verbs, with a stem-vowel alternation in the present tense (for example, du siehst and er sieht) rather than a regular -en pattern.

Usage notes: sehen is transitive and can take a direct object, e.g., Du siehst den Wagen. It is also used in many figurative expressions meaning to realize or understand, such as “Ich sehe, dass …” (I see that …). The standard formal you uses sehen Sie, not siehst, with the formal pronoun Sie capitalized.

Etymology: See is a common Germanic verb with origins in Proto-Germanic *sehwaną and related forms in Old High German. Over time, the present-tense forms developed irregular vowel alternations that are still visible in du siehst and er sieht.

Common phrases: Du siehst gut aus. Siehst du das dort drüben? Wir sehen einen Film. The verb commonly pairs with demonstratives like das, dort, or with infinitives in constructions such as sehen + zu + infinitive.

See also: sehen (the base verb), sehen conjugation, German irregular verbs, German pronoun usage (du vs. Sie).