Luxembourgish irregular verbs: sinn, hunn, goen, kommen and the modals

Sinn, hunn, goen, kommen, maachen and the five modal verbs — kënnen, mussen, wëllen, sollen, dierfen — are in almost every Luxembourgish sentence. Their present, their past and their quirks, from the official LOD tables, with sentences read by native speakers.

Updated November 1, 2026 · 5 min read

Most Luxembourgish verbs follow the regular present-tense pattern. The ones that don't are, unhelpfully, the ones you need first. The good news: there are not many of them, and they are irregular in the same few places. Every form below is from the conjugation tables of the Lëtzebuerger Online Dictionnaire (LOD); each verb links to its full table.

The big two: sinn and hunn

Both are also the helper verbs of the past: *ech hunn … gemaach* (I did), *ech sinn … gaangen* (I went). Which one a verb takes is printed on every verb page and explained in the Luxembourgish past tense. Unlike most verbs, sinn and hunn are used in the simple past all the time: *war* and *hat*.

goen, kommen, maachen, ginn

Two traps. First, ech ginn means both *I go* (from goen) and *I give / I become* (from ginn) — the context, and the past (*ech si gaangen* vs *ech hu ginn*), tell them apart. Second, et gëtt (from ginn) is the Luxembourgish *there is / there are*: *et gëtt Leit, déi…* — there are people who…

Know, stand, say, get, let

wëssen is to know a fact; kennen is to know a person or a place. *Ech weess, wou hie wunnt* — I know where he lives; *ech kennen hien* — I know him.

The five modal verbs

Modal verbs say what you can, must, want, should or may do. They work like English *can*: the modal is conjugated, and the main verb goes to the end of the sentence in the infinitive — *ech kann haut net kommen* (I can't come today).

Look at the ech and hien forms: no ending at all (*ech kann, hie kann; ech muss, hie muss*). brauchen (need to) behaves the same way: *du brauchs just eppes ze soen* — you only need to say something.

Modals in the past: “I had to go” = ech hu misse goen

In the perfect, a modal with another verb takes the form of an infinitive, not a participle: *ech hu misse goen* (I had to go), *hien huet net wëlle follegen* (he didn't want to obey). LOD lists these as the participles *missen/mussen, kënnen, wëllen, sollen, dierfen*. On its own, without another verb, a modal uses its normal participle: *ech hunn et net gewollt* — I didn't want it.

Learn them in this order

1. sinn and hunn — with *war* and *hat*.
2. goen, kommen, maachen.
3. kënnen, mussen, wëllen — the three modals of every conversation.
4. wëssen, verstoen, soen — for asking and explaining.
5. ginn, kréien, huelen — giving, getting, taking.
6. The vowel-change verbs — iessen, fueren, schlofen, kafen — and the 100 common verbs.

Keep learning

• The present tense, regular verbs first
• The past tense: perfect and simple past
• Word order: where the infinitive goes
• Personal pronouns
• Asking questions
• Greetings and everyday phrases
• All Luxembourgish verb tables
• How to learn Luxembourgish online