Are the subclasses of strong verbs useful for learner?

Question

One of the first things you might notice if you look up German verbs in English Wiktionary is that they include a class number right in the main label. For example the entry for sehen says "(class 5 strong, ... )". English Wikipedia explains this terminology in Germanic strong verb and it's covered in a bit less detail in German Wikipedia under Starkes Verb. I understand it's important to distinguish between strong and weak verbs because they have different conjugation endings in the past tense, for example the simple past tense of a weak verb usually adds a ''t'' (''drehen'' -> ''ich drehte'') but not with a strong verb (''sehen'' -> ''ich sah''). But I've never considered it necessary to learn the class numbers of individual verbs, despite the fact that this information is emphasized in Wiktionary.

My reasoning is that I'm primarily interested in learning Modern German, not the German that was spoken centuries ago, so unless the information is helpful with the modern language there isn't much point to memorizing it, even if it might be interesting from a historical point of view. The class number does not determine vowel changes in Modern German, for example ''meiden'' and ''greifen'' are both class 1, but conjugated ''ich mied'' and ''ich griff''. (I'm sure there was some historical reason for this difference, which may be interesting, but unless it's part of a pattern that helps to memorize vowel changes it's not very helpful.) Some other classes are more consistent, for example class 2 seem to regularly change ''ie'' to ''o''. But it seems simpler to call these "''ie'' to ''o'' verbs" that to say they are class 2 and then say class 2 verbs change ''ie'' to ''o''. Meanwhile, the vowel change does not determine the class, for example ''bergen'' is class 3 and ''brechen'' is class 4, but their vowel changes are the same: ''ich barg'', ''geborgen'' and ''ich brach'', ''gebrochen''. (There may be some subtleties with long vs. short vowels going on here, but if so, it doesn't seem helpful.) I've noticed that German language dictionaries don't include the class number; German Wiktionary gives a very reduced conjugation table compared to English, and DWDS is happy to just give 3rd person singular present and past and the past participle. (With most verbs this is enough information to fill in the tables if you know the general pattern.)

So my questions are: Should I, as a learner, pay any attention at all to these class numbers? Do native speakers, outside a few Philolog(inn)en, pay attention to them?

Answer 1

In short: No.

There's learning a language, and there's linguistics. To do the former, you don't need to master the latter (like: You don't need to be an engineer to drive a car). And Wiktionary, like any dictionary, doesn't always distinguish between essential and marginally interesting knowledge.

German is very much like English with respect to verb forms: There's regular (weak) and irregular (strong) verbs, weak verbs can be grasped as a schema, and the strong ones you need to memorise.

Linguists simply have refused to call the German irregular verbs just that¹ because in fact, they follow a number of regular patterns - they fall in the classes you mentioned, and within that class, they are in fact (sort of) regular (and used to be even more during language history). I personally think it's easier to forget about the classes and simply memorise the conjugation as you do - There are just too many exceptions to the rules to make these classes practically useful for a learner. Very probably, after some practice, your brain will recognise the patterns anyways and try and apply them automatically (that's at least how it works for me). So: It does make sense to know about the patterns, but you shouldn't try and memorise the pattern class with the verb which is just one level of indirection too much, at least for me - instead, memorise at least the basic conjugation table of each irregular verb.

BTW: If you have a look at the irregular verbs entry in English Wikipedia or the list of English irregular verbs in Wiktionary, you will find a similar grouping of English verbs (maybe a bit more frayed by the centuries than in German) into pattern classes that you've maybe never learned and still regularly apply. That is actually part of the common Germanic ancestry of English and German.

¹: Even if German schooling has just started to slowly take up this habit: pupils are in fact being told there are regular and irregular verbs in German nowadays.