The perfect tense das Perfekt describes completed actions and is used mainly in spoken and informal German to relate past events. It forms with an auxiliary and a past participle.
Formation
The perfect tense forms with either haben or sein as an auxiliary in the present tense, followed by the past participle placed at the end of the clause.
Auxiliary Helpers
Most verbs use haben as the auxiliary, but verbs that express movement, change of state, or that are intransitive commonly use sein. Some verbs can use both depending on meaning.
Past Participle
The past participle for regular verbs follows a predictable pattern with ge- at the start and -t at the end, while irregular participles must be learned individually.
Today I ate lunch quickly.
Regular Verbs
Regular verbs schwache Verben form the past participle by adding ge- to the stem and ending with -t, making them easy to predict in the perfect tense.
-en Verbs
-eln / -ern Verbs
-igen Verbs
Irregular Verbs
Irregular verbs starke Verben change their stem in the past participle and sometimes lose the ge- prefix; these forms must be memorized through practice.
Common Irregulars
Verbs Ending in -ieren
Mixed Verbs
Signal Words
Signal words Zeitangaben often accompany the perfect tense to situate the action in time, such as gestern, vor kurzem, and letzte Woche.
Usage
Use the perfect tense primarily in spoken German and informal writing to narrate past events; the preterite das Präteritum appears more in formal writing and certain auxiliaries.
Summary
The perfect tense narrates completed actions using an auxiliary haben* or *sein plus a past participle; regular participles follow a pattern while irregular forms must be learned.
Last updated: Fri Oct 24, 2025