Perfect Tense - Perfekt Flashcards
Tell me about the Perfect Tense.
The perfect tense, also called present perfect (Perfekt), is a past tense. We use it to speak about actions completed in the recent past. In spoken German, the present perfect tense is often used instead of the past tense. We can translate the perfect tense using the English simple past tense.
- What do we use the German perfect tense to express?
A completed action in the past with the focus on the result of the action.
Example: Gestern hat Michael sein Büro aufgeräumt/Yesterday, Micheal cleaned his office
Result: the office is clean now
- What do we use the German perfect tense to express?
An action that will be completed by a certain point in the future.
Example: Bis nächste Woche hat er das bestimmt wieder vergessen./By next week he’ll surely have forgotten this again.
The point in the future must be specifically designated, otherwise we use the future perfect.
What do we need to conjugate verbs in the perfect tense?
To conjugate verbs in the perfect tense we need the present tense form of sein/haben and the past participle (Partizip II).
Tell me about the use of Haben and Sein in the perfect tense.
The verbs haben and sein are used as auxiliary or helping verbs in the perfect tense.
- We use haben to conjugate the present perfect with:
verbs that take an accusative object
Example: Michael hat das Büro aufgeräumt./Micheal has tidied the office
- We use haben to conjugate the present perfect with:
verbs without an accusative object that don’t express a change of state or place.
Example: Er hat aufgeräumt./He has tidied up
- We use haben to conjugate the present perfect with:
reflexive verbs
Example: Das Büro hat sich verändert./The office has changed
- We use sein to conjugate the present perfect with:
verbs of movement that don’t take an accusative object: gehen, laufen, fahren, fallen, fliegen, kommen, reisen, stolpern, stürzen
Example: Alle Kollegen sind in sein Büro gekommen./All colleages have come into his office
- We use sein to conjugate the present perfect with:
verbs that express a change of state: aufwachen/erwachen, einschlafen, gefrieren, tauen, sterbn, zerfallen
Example:
Michaels Ordungsliebe ist erwacht./Micheals tidiness has been awoken
- We use sein to conjugate the present perfect with: (name the verbs)
the following verbs: bleiben, geschehen, gelingen, misslingen, sein, werden
Example: Was ist mit Michael geschehen?/What has happened to Micheal?
- The past participle (Partizip II) is formed in the following ways:
Regular Verbs also known as weak verbs (schwache Verben) form the past participle with ge…t and the verb stem.
Example: lernen – gelernt
- The past participle (Partizip II) is formed in the following ways:
Irregular verbs are verbs that change their verb stem in simple past and/or the participle form (see list of irregular verb). There are two kinds of irregular verbs in German grammar: strong verbs (starke Verben) and mixed verbs (gemischte Verben).
Strong Verbs form the past particple with mit ge…en.
Example: sehen – gesehen (sehen-sah-gesehen)
gehen – gegangen (gehen-ging-gegangen)
Mixed Verbs form the past participle with ge…t.
Example: haben – gehabt (haben-hatte-gehabt)
bringen – gebracht (bringen-brachte-gebracht)
What is the first exception to forming with the past participle (Partizip II)?
We add an -et to weak/mixed verbs when the word stem ends in d/t.
Example: warten – gewartet/to wait - waited
What is the second exception to forming with the past participle (Partizip II)?
Verbs that end in -ieren form their past participle without ge.
Example: studieren – studiert/to study - studied
