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Simple
Past Tense
The simple past (or narrative past) is used for relating a story or a series of events that have already happened. The third person singular forms (er, sie, es) are identical to the first person singular form (ich). The endings for the plural forms do not change. The simple past endings for weak verbs and the three helping verbs haben, werden, and sein and for strong verbs are as follows:
Weak Verbs ending in -d, -t, and certain consonant clusters: Insert an -e between the personal endings.
Present and Past Perfect Tenses Present perfect (or conversational past) is used most frequently when speaking and in informal writing. To use the present or past perfect you need to know how to conjugate the auxiliary verbs and how to form the past participle. Auxiliary Verbs: Whereas we always use a form of have (have, has, or had), German uses two auxiliaries to form these tenses. The vast majority of verbs will take the auxiliary haben. However, some very common verbs take sein. Such verbs generally express a change in location or state of being. For instance, the verb gehen indicates a change from one place (wherever you happen to be) toward your destination. The verb sterben expresses a change from a living state to a non-living state. Obviously, it is important to know the meaning of the verb in question to be able to place it in its correct group. Past Participles: Form the past participle of weak verbs by taking the stem of the verb, adding the prefix ge- and the suffix -t. Form the past participle of strong verbs by adding the prefix ge- and the suffix -en. Present Perfect:
Past Perfect:
Present Perfect:
Past Perfect:
Future and Future Perfect Tenses In English we form the future tense with "will" + an infinitive: "I will go home." or "You will learn German." In German, we use the verb "werden" plus the infinitive form of the verb: "Ich werde nach Hause gehen." (I will go home.) or "Du wirst Deutsch lernen." (You will learn German.) Usually we use the future perfect in English, when we talk about having done something by some date in the future: "By December 20 I will have graded all of the final exams." In German, we use "werden" as the conjugated verb plus the past participle followed by its auxiliary: "Ich werde vor 9 Uhr nach Hause gegangen sein." ( I will have gone home before 9.) or "Er wird vor 9 Uhr die Vokabeln gelernt haben." (He will have learned the vocabulary before 9 o'clock.) Return to Sitemap Page |
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Copyright 2001 Margaret Eskew and Angela Carr Site developed and maintained by Angela Carr of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies