House

Perfect Tense

We're now going to jump back in time to the past tense in German. There are a few different forms but in this module we will be looking at the Perfect Tense.

The perfect tense is used to talk about something that happened at some point in the past and is the main tense used to describe past events in spoken German. In English, the perfect tense is often shown by a specific form like have done or have been.

For example:
Have you seen Marie?
Where have you been?

The German perfect tense is more versatile than the English perfect tense. You can use it in most past tense situations, even those that don't work so well in English.

For example:
Wir haben gestern ein schönes Haus gesehen. ⇨ We saw a lovely house yesterday.

This sentence is grammatically correct in German but it doesn't quite work in English as you wouldn't normally say "We have seen a lovely house yesterday."

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Forming the German Perfect Tense

When you want to talk about something in the past, you will need to construct the German perfect tense sentence in two parts.

• The first part is the present tense of either haben or sein.


• The second part is the verb which explains what you were doing. This verb is the past tense version of the German verb called the past participle and goes to the end of the sentence. The past participle is equivalent to played, walked, gone etc. in English.

The first part is pretty straightforward. The second part, forming the past participle is a little bit more involved. This depends on whether the verb is a weak or a strong verb.

When to use sein and haben?

Most verbs form the perfect tense with the verb haben, so if in doubt pick this one. Certain verbs however require sein. Verbs that form their perfect tense with sein are verbs that talk about something related to movement or describe a change of some kind.

For example:
gehen ⇨ to go
kommen ⇨ to come
ankommen ⇨ to arrive
fliegen ⇨ to fly
sterben ⇨ to die
bleiben ⇨ to stay
sein ⇨ to be
aufstehen ⇨ to get up

Tip
The majority of past tense German sentences are constructed using the verb haben, however when talking about something related to movement, you would use the verb sein.

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Forming the Past Participle

Past Participle of Weak Verbs

Weak verbs are the most common and follow a consistent pattern. Again, if in doubt, form the verb in this way. Even if you're wrong, you will still most likely be understood by German speakers. Here is the formula for constructing the past participle of a weak verb:

Formula
ge + verb stem + t

Here are a few examples of how to convert a weak verb into the past tense:

machen (to do) ⇨ gemacht
lachen (to laugh) ⇨ gelacht
schneien (to snow) ⇨ geschneit
sagen (to say) ⇨ gesagt

Note: If the stem of a weak verb ends in -d, -t, -m and -n, you need to add an extra e after the stem.

For example:
Er hat bis 17 Uhr gearbeitet. ⇨ He worked to 5pm.
Sie haben die ganze Nacht geredet. ⇨ They talked all night.

For more information on weak verbs, take a look at our Free Time and Hobbies Module in Level A1.

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Past Participle of Strong Verbs

To form the past participle of a strong verb, you again add ge to the beginning of the verb, but add en to the end of the stem.

Formula
ge + verb stem + en

For example:

schlafen (to sleep) ⇨ geschlafen	kommen (to come) ⇨ gekommen	essen (to eat) ⇨ gegessen
trinken (to drink) ⇨ getrunken	sein (to be) ⇨ gewesen	gehen (to go) ⇨ gegangen
fahren (to drive) ⇨ gefahren	nehmen (to take) ⇨ genommen	schreiben (to write) ⇨ geschrieben

Remember: With strong verbs, the stem of the verb may change in the past tense. For more information on strong verbs, take a look at our Food Module in Level A1.

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Putting it all together

Now you know when to use haben or sein and how to form the past participle, you can put it all together to form a sentence in the perfect tense:

Hast du Marie gesehen? ⇨ Have you seen Marie? (Literal: Have you Marie seen?)
Da habe ich schon geschaut. ⇨ I have already looked there. (Literal: There have I already looked.)
Sie ist noch nicht nach Hause gekommen. ⇨ She hasn't come home yet. (Literal: She is yet not after home come.)
Wir haben schon gegessen. ⇨ We've already eaten. (Literal: We have already eaten.)
Ich bin gestern ins Kino gegangen. ⇨ I went to the cinema yesterday. (Literal: I am yesterday in the cinema gone.)

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Modal Verbs in the Perfect Tense

When you're dealing with modal verbs in the perfect tense, you need to be aware of word order. Some sentences may have three verb components and others may have only two parts. To form a perfect tense sentence with a modal verb, you first need to conjugate the verb haben in the present tense as you do with weak and strong verbs. The next step depends on whether the sentence has two or three verbs.

• In situations where the sentence has only two verbs the conjugated form of haben goes in second position in the sentence and the past participle of the modal verb goes at the end. Let's have a look at the past participle forms of the six modal verbs:



dürfen (to be allowed to) ⇨ gedurft	können (to be able to) ⇨ gekonnt	mögen (to like) ⇨ gemocht
müssen (to have to) ⇨ gemusst	sollen (should) ⇨ gesollt	wollen (to want to) ⇨ gewollt


Example sentences:
Ich habe sie nicht gemocht. ⇨ I didn't like her.
Jennifer hat das Geld nicht gewollt. ⇨ Jennifer didn't want the money.



• When the modal verb combines with another verb, they form a double infinitive. Effectively this just means they like to stick together and both go to the end, with the modal verb staying last. Both verbs stay in their infinitive form to keep things easy ... for a change!
  

Example sentences:
Er hat in einem kleinen Haus wohnen müssen. ⇨ He had to live in a small house.
Ich habe nicht zu seiner Party gehen dürfen. ⇨ I wasn't allowed to go to his party.

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Few Exceptions

There are a couple of exceptions to look out for. These exceptions exist when the verb in its infinitive form begins with be, ge or ver. When this happens, the beginning of the verb stays the same.

For example:
besichtigen (to view) ⇨ besichtigt
gewinnen (to win) ⇨ gewonnen
vergessen (to forget) ⇨ vergessen

Example Sentences:
Wir haben gestern eine Wohnung besichtigt. ⇨ We looked at a flat yesterday. (Literal: We have yesterday a flat viewed.)
Tom hat 100€ gewonnen. ⇨ Tom has won €100. (Literal: Tom has €100 won.)
Herr Bäcker hat den Apfelkuchen im Ofen vergessen. ⇨ Mr Bäcker forgot about the apple pie in the oven. (Literal: Mr Bäcker has the apple pie in the oven forgotten.)