The perfect tense in German

• The perfect tense is used to say what someone did, or has done, in the past.

• Three parts are needed to form the perfect tense in German: the subject, the auxiliary verb and the past participle at the end.

• Past participles can be regular or irregular.

Most German verbs use the auxiliary verb haben in the perfect tense. It is important to know how to conjugate the verb:

If a verb shows movement, as in gehen (to go), fahren (to travel, go or drive) or fliegen (to fly), or shows a change of state, such as aufwachen (to wake up), it uses sein as the auxiliary verb.

For example:

Ich bin ins Kino gegangen. – I went to the cinema/I have gone to the cinema.

It is important to know how to conjugate sein:

Remember: Irregular verbs can always be found in a bilingual dictionary.

It is important to know whether a verb is regular or irregular because this affects how the past participle is formed.

It is not always easy to know if a verb is regular or irregular and this is often discovered when learning new verbs.

Regular verbs (also called weak verbs) do not have a spelling change in the stem. For example, the stem spiel- in the verb spielen does not change in the present tense: ich spiele, du spielst, er spielt.

To form a regular past participle remove the -en ending, add -t, and add ge- to the start.

Some common regular past participles include:

Irregular verbs (also called strong verbs) have a spelling change in the stem.

For example, the stem seh- in sehen (to see) changes in the present tense: ich sehe, du siehst, er sieht.

To form an irregular past participle add ge- to the start and keep the -en or -n ending.

It is useful to learn as many common irregular past participles and exceptions as possible. Some common verbs include:

While the majority of past participles can be identified by ge- at the start, some verbs are exceptions to this rule and it is important to know them.

Verbs with inseparable prefixes such as be-, ver-, emp-, ent-, er-, ge- and über- do not take ge- when forming the past participle.

Examples include:

Verbs which end in -ieren do not have ge- at the start but end in -t:

• studieren – Ich habe Deutsch in der Schule studiert – I studied German at school.

Verbs with separable prefixes

Separable verbs consist of two parts: a main verb and a preposition:

• auf + wachen = aufwachen – to wake up

• auf + stehen = aufstehen – to get up

• an + ziehen = anziehen – to get dressed

• fern + sehen = fernsehen – to watch TV

In the present tense the prefix goes to the end of the sentence.

For example:

Ich wache um sieben Uhr auf.

In the perfect tense, both parts come back together with ge- in the middle.

For example:

Ich bin um sieben Uhr aufgewacht.

The verb is always the second idea in German. When forming the perfect tense the auxiliary verb is the second idea. The past participle is at the end of the sentence.

For example:

• Ich habe Fußball gespielt. – I played football.

• Sie hat ein Buch gekauft. – She bought a book.

• Wir sind nach Dortmund gefahren. – We travelled to Dortmund.

• Letztes Wochenende bin ich ins Kino gegangen. – Last weekend I went to the cinema.

Note: The time phrase letztes Wochenende is the first idea, so the auxiliary verb bin comes in the second position.

The perfect tense can be translated into English in two ways, depending on the context.

Meine Schwester ist mit ihren Freunden in den Park gegangen can mean both:

• My sister went to the park with her friends.

• My sister has gone to the park with her friends.

More commonly, the perfect tense is translated into English using the imperfect (simple past).

For example:

• Ich habe Tischtennis gespielt – I played tennis

• Meine Familie und ich sind nach Salzburg gefahren – My family and I travelled to Salzburg

• Ich habe den neuen Actionfilm ziemlich langweilig gefunden – I found the new action film quite boring

Practise what you've learned about the perfect tense with this quiz.