Perfect Tenses Flashcards
How are past participles formed for weak verbs?
Add ge to the beginning, then drop the en or n and add t to the end. So kaufen, for example, would become gekauft.
How are past participles formed for strong verbs?
Strong verbs take the ge- but keep their regular (–n or –en) infinitive ending.
But they also often have a vowel shift.
- halten … gehalten
- riechen … gerochen
- helfen … geholfen
What is the past participle for strong verb halten?
gehalten
What is the past participle for strong verb riechen?
gerochen
What is the past participle for strong verb helfen?
geholfen
What is the past participle for mixed verb brennen?
gebrannt
What is the past participle for mixed verb bringen?
gebracht
What are the past participles for the auxiliary verbs - sein?
gewesen
What are the past participles for the auxiliary verb - werden?
geworden
What are the past participles for the auxiliary verb - haben?
gehabt
How is the perfect tense formed?
Conjugate haben or sein in the present tense and add the past participle.e.g. Ich habe gelacht (I laughed)
In general which type of verbs take sein.
Most verbs take haben, but some of the ones that take sein are pretty common.
In general, sein is for verbs showing a change of location (movement) or a change of state/condition (transformation).
For example movement:
- gehen – to go
- kommen – to come
- laufen – to walk
- run
change of state:
- sterben – to die
- wachsen – to grow
- genesen – to recover, convalesce
How is the pluperfect tense formed?
Conjugate haben or sein in the preterite tense and add the past participle.
e.g. Es hatte bereits angefangen zu regnen.(It had already started to rain)
Which is the prefered past tense for german, preterite or perfect?
Germans prefer to use the perfect tense and it is used about 90% time.
When should the preterite be used in preference to the present tense?
- Always use the preterite for sein.
- Always use the preterite for modal verbs.
