A1 · Tenses
The Perfekt
the spoken past
haben or sein plus a participle at the end — and it is how Germans talk about yesterday.
The Perfekt is built the way the English present perfect is: an auxiliary in second position and a participle at the end. Ich habe das Buch gelesen. The difference is what it means — German uses it for the whole of the spoken past, including things English would put in the simple past.
Most verbs take haben. Sein is taken by verbs of movement from one place to another (gehen, fahren, kommen, fliegen) and by verbs of change of state (werden, aufwachen, sterben), plus sein and bleiben themselves. It is a short and closed list, which is why it is worth learning as one.
The participle is regular for most verbs: ge- plus the stem plus -t, giving gemacht, gekauft, gearbeitet. Strong verbs take ge- plus a stem that may change its vowel plus -en: gegangen, gesehen, getrunken. Those have to be learned, and the list of them is finite and roughly two hundred long.
Die Form
| weak verb | machen – gemacht – ich habe gemacht |
| strong verb | sehen – gesehen – ich habe gesehen |
| with sein | fahren – gefahren – ich bin gefahren |
| separable | ankommen – angekommen – ich bin angekommen |
| no ge- | verstehen – verstanden, telefonieren – telefoniert |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
The auxiliary is in second position and the participle at the end of the clause.
Ich habe gestern den ganzen Tag gearbeitet.I worked all day yesterday.
Verbs of movement to a place and of change of state take sein; everything else takes haben.
Wir sind nach Hamburg gefahren.We went to Hamburg.
Weak verbs form the participle with ge- ... -t, strong verbs with ge- ... -en.
gekauft, getrunkenbought, drunk
Verbs with an inseparable prefix and verbs ending in -ieren take no ge-.
Er hat das nicht verstanden.He did not understand that.
Genauer hingesehen
Why German lost its spoken simple past
Southern German dialects dropped the simple past centuries ago and replaced it with the compound form, and the habit spread north through the spoken language while the written language kept both. The result is a split by register rather than by meaning: ich ging is what a novel writes, ich bin gegangen is what a person says.
English went the other way and kept both, then loaded them with a distinction — finished time versus time still open — that German never developed. This is why "I saw him yesterday" and "I have seen him" are one German sentence: the German pair never carried that difference, so nothing was lost when one half of it stopped being spoken.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
the verb is sein, haben or a modal
spoken German prefers the simple past: war, hatte, konnte, musste, wollte.
Ich hatte keine Zeit und musste absagen.I had no time and had to cancel.
These are short and very frequent, and the compound form would be clumsy — ich habe gekonnt is grammatical and almost nobody says it.
-
the verb of movement has an object and does not go anywhere
it takes haben after all.
Ich habe das Auto in die Garage gefahren.I drove the car into the garage.
Then it is not describing a journey but an action performed on something, and the sein rule is about journeys.
Woran man es erkennt
- habe
- hat
- bin
- ist
- ge-
- -t
- -en
- gestern
- letzte Woche
Beispielsätze
Ich habe gestern einen Film gesehen.I watched a film yesterday.
Wann bist du angekommen?When did you arrive?
Sie hat mir nichts gesagt.She did not tell me anything.
Wir sind zu Fuß gegangen.We walked.
Hast du schon gegessen?Have you eaten yet?
Noch 8 Beispielsätze
Was hast du am Wochenende gemacht?What did you do at the weekend?
Der Zug ist pünktlich angekommen.The train arrived on time.
Ich habe den Schlüssel verloren.I have lost the key.
Sie ist erst um Mitternacht eingeschlafen.She did not fall asleep until midnight.
Wir haben lange darüber gesprochen.We talked about it for a long time.
Hat er dir geantwortet?Did he answer you?
Ich bin in Köln geboren.I was born in Cologne.
Sie haben das Haus letztes Jahr gekauft.They bought the house last year.
Besonderheiten (2)
-
ge- goes inside a separable verb
A separable prefix keeps its place in front, and the <z>ge-</z> slides in between: <z>ankommen</z> gives <z>angekommen</z>, <z>aufstehen</z> gives <z>aufgestanden</z>, <z>einkaufen</z> gives <z>eingekauft</z>. Inseparable prefixes take no <z>ge-</z> at all, which is the second half of the same rule: the <z>ge-</z> attaches to the stem, and an inseparable prefix is already attached there.
angekommen, aufgestanden — aber: verstandenarrived, got up — but: understood
-
Verbs in -ieren take no ge-
Every verb ending in <z>-ieren</z> is a borrowing, and none of them takes <z>ge-</z>: <z>telefoniert</z>, <z>studiert</z>, <z>funktioniert</z>, <z>reserviert</z>. The stress explains it — <z>ge-</z> only attaches in front of a stressed syllable, and in these verbs the stress is on the <z>-ie-</z> at the far end.
Ich habe gestern mit ihr telefoniert.I spoke to her on the phone yesterday.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
English builds every perfect with "have", so haben is the form that arrives by itself and sein is the one that has to be chosen deliberately. The test is movement from A to B or a change of state — and it is worth applying at the moment you pick the verb rather than at the end of the sentence, because by then the auxiliary is already said.
Movement and change take sein. Everything else takes haben.
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