B1 · Tenses
The Präteritum
the written past
The past tense of books and reports — plus six verbs that use it in speech.
The Präteritum is a one-word past: ich ging, ich machte, er sah. It means exactly what the Perfekt means. What differs is where it is used: narrative prose, news writing, reports and formal letters use it, and ordinary conversation does not.
Weak verbs form it with -te on the stem: machen gives machte, arbeiten gives arbeitete. Strong verbs change the stem vowel and take no ending in the first and third person singular: gehen gives ich ging, er ging. That missing ending is the one thing that catches learners out.
The exception matters more than the rule for a beginner. War, hatte and the modals konnte, musste, wollte, durfte, sollte, mochte are used in the Präteritum in speech, by everybody, all the time. Learn those before you learn any of the rest.
Die Form
| weak | machen – ich machte, du machtest, er machte |
| strong | gehen – ich ging, du gingst, er ging |
| sein | ich war, du warst, er war, wir waren |
| haben | ich hatte, du hattest, er hatte, wir hatten |
| modal | ich konnte, ich musste, ich wollte |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
Weak verbs add -te to the stem, then the personal ending.
Sie wartete eine Stunde.She waited for an hour.
Strong verbs change the stem vowel and take no ending in ich and er.
Ich fand das gut.I thought that was good.
sein, haben and the modals use the Präteritum in speech as well as in writing.
Ich konnte nicht kommen.I could not come.
The Präteritum and the Perfekt mean the same thing. The choice is register, not time.
Er ging nach Hause. / Er ist nach Hause gegangen.He went home. / He went home.
Genauer hingesehen
The strong verbs are one system, not two hundred accidents
German strong verbs fall into about seven vowel patterns inherited from an old system in which the vowel of the stem carried the tense. Singen – sang – gesungen, trinken – trank – getrunken, finden – fand – gefunden are one pattern with three members visible at a glance.
English has the same seven patterns from the same source, which is why sing – sang – sung and drink – drank – drunk line up so exactly. An English speaker learning German strong verbs is not learning a new system; they are recovering one they already use without noticing, and the overlap is large enough to be worth looking for verb by verb.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
the verb is a mixed verb — bringen, denken, kennen, nennen, wissen
it changes its vowel like a strong verb and takes -te like a weak one.
Ich dachte, du kämst später.I thought you were coming later.
A small group ended up in both camps, and the result is the least predictable corner of the system.
-
you are speaking rather than writing
use the Perfekt for everything except sein, haben and the modals.
Ich habe ihn gestern gesehen.I saw him yesterday.
Präteritum in conversation sounds like reading aloud from a book — correct, and noticeably formal.
Woran man es erkennt
- -te
- -ten
- war
- hatte
- konnte
- damals
- plötzlich
Beispielsätze
Er wohnte damals in Leipzig.He was living in Leipzig at the time.
Plötzlich klingelte das Telefon.Suddenly the telephone rang.
Ich wusste das nicht.I did not know that.
Wir mussten lange warten.We had to wait a long time.
Sie kam zu spät und ging früh.She arrived late and left early.
Noch 8 Beispielsätze
Es regnete den ganzen Tag.It rained all day.
Der Zug hatte Verspätung.The train was delayed.
Niemand wusste, was passiert war.Nobody knew what had happened.
Sie schrieb ihm einen langen Brief.She wrote him a long letter.
Wir durften nicht hinein.We were not allowed in.
Das Kind schlief sofort ein.The child fell asleep at once.
Er brachte uns zum Bahnhof.He took us to the station.
Damals gab es hier noch ein Kino.There was still a cinema here in those days.
Besonderheiten (2)
-
ich and er are identical
In the Präteritum the first and third person singular are the same form: <z>ich ging</z> and <z>er ging</z>, <z>ich machte</z> and <z>er machte</z>. This is true of the modals too — <z>ich konnte</z>, <z>er konnte</z> — and it is one of the few places where German does not distinguish two persons, so context or the pronoun has to do the work.
Ich war da, und er war auch da.I was there, and he was there too.
-
A story is told in the Präteritum
Fiction, fairy tales and reportage use it throughout: <z>Es war einmal</z>. Switching into the Perfekt in the middle of a written narrative reads as a change of voice — the narrator stepping out to address the reader — which is a real effect and not a mistake, but it should be deliberate.
Es war einmal ein König, der drei Töchter hatte.Once upon a time there was a king who had three daughters.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
The weak ending -te is so regular that it gets applied to strong verbs as well, producing a form that is doubly marked. A strong Präteritum carries its past in the vowel and takes no -te at all — and no ending in ich and er either. English learners recognise the pattern once it is pointed out: it is sing – sang, not singed.
Books use it. Speech uses war, hatte and the modals.
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