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    Das Perfekt Perfect Tense

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    Lovely Raborar
    The document discusses the perfect tense in German grammar. It explains that the perfect tense is used to talk about the past and is formed using an auxiliary verb (haben or sein) in the second position plus the past participle at the end of the sentence. It provides examples of how to form the past participle for weak, strong, and mixed verbs. It also explains that most verbs form the perfect tense with haben, except for verbs involving movement or location which use sein.

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    Das Perfekt Perfect Tense

    Uploaded by

    Lovely Raborar
    93 views4 pages
    The document discusses the perfect tense in German grammar. It explains that the perfect tense is used to talk about the past and is formed using an auxiliary verb (haben or sein) in the second position plus the past participle at the end of the sentence. It provides examples of how to form the past participle for weak, strong, and mixed verbs. It also explains that most verbs form the perfect tense with haben, except for verbs involving movement or location which use sein.

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    Das-Perfekt-Perfect-tense

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    The document discusses the perfect tense in German grammar. It explains that the perfect tense is used to talk about the past and is formed using an auxiliary verb (haben or sein) in the second position plus the past participle at the end of the sentence. It provides examples of how to form the past participle for weak, strong, and mixed verbs. It also explains that most verbs form the perfect tense with haben, except for verbs involving movement or location which use sein.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    93 views4 pages

    Das Perfekt Perfect Tense

    Uploaded by

    Lovely Raborar
    The document discusses the perfect tense in German grammar. It explains that the perfect tense is used to talk about the past and is formed using an auxiliary verb (haben or sein) in the second position plus the past participle at the end of the sentence. It provides examples of how to form the past participle for weak, strong, and mixed verbs. It also explains that most verbs form the perfect tense with haben, except for verbs involving movement or location which use sein.

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    Das Perfekt ( Perfect tense)

    The Perfect tense is a very important tense in German grammar. We use


    it almost always, when speaking about the past.
    How to form the perfect tense:
    Auxiliary verb (conjugated) + Past Participle (at the end of the sentence)

    „Auxiliary verb“ („Hilfsverb“) here means that at position 2 in the main

    clause (where the conjugated verb is ALWAYS found) there is a verb

    that helps us to construct the perfect tense in German grammar. The

    auxiliary verb does not have any meaning by itself, it has only a

    grammatical function.

    Because of this, there are fundamentally only two possible verbs that

    one can use as the auxiliary verb for constructing the Perfect Tense,

    namely the verb „haben“ and the verb „sein“. Let me explain to you when

    to use „haben“ and when to use „sein“.

    Firstly, an example:

    Present tense: I learn German/ I am learning German.


    When we want to put this easy sentence into the Perfect tense, the

    following happens:

    What happens?

    The verb „lernen“ becomes the past participle and moves from position 2
    to the END of the sentence. To Position 2 now comes the auxiliary verb
    „haben“ in conjugated form, so „Ich habE“, with an „e“.

    This structure always remains the same: auxiliary verb in Position 2, past participle

    at the end of the sentence, as with much longer sentences:


    Forming the past participle

    ● To form the past participle of weak verbs, you add ​ge-​ to the
    beginning of the verb stem and ​-t​ to the end​.

    Infinitive Take off Add ge- and -t


    -en

    holen​ (​to fetch​) hol- geholt

    machen​ (​to mach- gemacht


    do)​

    Note that one exception to this rule is weak verbs ending in ​-ieren​,
    which omit the ​ge​.

    studieren​ (​to studiert


    study)​ (​studied)​

    ● To form the past participle of strong verbs, you add ​ge-​ to the
    beginning of the verb stem and ​-en​ to the end. The vowel in the
    stem may also change.

    Infinitive Take off Add ge- and -en


    -en

    laufen​ (​to run​) lauf- gelaufen

    singen​ (​to sing​) sing- gesungen

    ● To form the past participle of mixed verbs, you add ​ge-​ to the
    beginning of the verb stem and, like weak verbs,​ -t​ to the end. As
    with many strong verbs, the stem vowel may also change.
    Infinitive Take off Add ge- and -t
    -en

    bringen​ (​to bring​) bring- gebracht

    denken​ (​to think​) denk- gedacht

    ● The perfect tense of separable verbs is also formed in the above


    way, except that the separable prefix is joined on to the front of
    the ​ge-: ich habe die Flasche aufgemacht, du hast die
    Flasche aufgemacht​ and so on.
    perfekt mit haben

    Verbs without movement or movement in a specific space.


    ● MOST verbs form their perfect tense with ​haben​.

    Ich habe das schon gemacht. I’ve already done that.

    Wo haben Sie früher Where did you work


    gearbeitet? before?

    ● With reflexive verbs the reflexive pronoun comes immediately


    after ​haben​.

    Ich habe mich heute Morgen I had a shower this morning.


    geduscht.

    Sie hat sich nicht daran erinnert. She didn’t remember.

    perfect tense

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