The Perfect Tense – A Common German Past Tense
Here we want to go through how you talk about the German Past Tense. There are a few forms of the Past Tense in German, and in this article we will be looking at the Perfect Tense. This is probably the most common of the past tenses in German.
This German past tense, the Perfect Tense, is used to talk about situations in the past such as:
I have played football – Ich habe Fußball gespielt
She has been to the cinema – Sie ist ins Kino gegangen
The perfect tense is a form of German past tense that is made up of 2 parts:
- The present form of either haben or sein. The majority of past tense German sentences are constructed using the verb haben, however when talking about something movement related, you would use the verb sein.
- The past tense German verb called the Past Participle. This is equivilent to played, walked, gone etc. in English.
Forming a Past Tense German Sentence in the Perfect Tense
As explained above, forming a past tense German sentence within the perfect tense is done in 2 parts. The first part, with haben or sein is pretty straight forward.
The second part, forming the Past Participle (the past tense German verb) is a little bit more involved. This depends on whether the verb is a weak verb, a strong verb, or a mixed verb.
Weak Verb and Mixed Verb Past Participle
To form the past participle of a weak or mixed verb, you add ge to the beginning of the verb and -t after the stem of the verb. Here are a few examples of how to get a weak verb into the past tense:
Spielen – to play – gespielt
Lachen – to laugh – gelacht
Lernen – to learn – gelernt
Sagen – to say – gesagt
Remember, with mixed verbs (as with strong verbs), the stem of the verb may change when going into the German past tense.
Bringen – to bring – gebracht
Denken – to think – gedacht
Strong Verb Past Participle
To form the past participle of a strong verb, you again add ge to the beginning of the verb, but instead add -en to the end of the stem. As with mixed verbs above, the stem may change when going into the past tense German form.
Lesen – to read – gelesen
Fahren – to drive – gefahren
Essen – to eat – gegessen
Trinken – to trink – getrunken
Putting it all together
Now you know to use haben or sein, and how to form the past tense German verb, you can put it all together to form a sentence in the German past tense:
Ich habe so sehr gelacht.
- I have laughed so much.
- (lit) I have so much laughed.
Ich bin gestern nach Hause gefahren
- I drove home yesterday
- (lit) I am yesterday home driven
Ich habe ein tolles Buch gelesen.
- I have read a great book.
- (lit) I have a great book read.
A Couple of Exceptions
There are a couple of exceptions when creating a past tense German verb. These exceptions exist when the verb in it’s standard form begins with ge or be or ver. When this happens, the beginning of the verb stays the same.
Ich habe letzte Woche meine Oma besucht – (besuchen)
- I have visited my grandma last week
- (lit) I have last week my grandma visited