In German, there are three main past tenses used to talk about events that have already happened:
- Präteritum (Simple Past): Used mainly in written language like stories and reports. Regular verbs form the Präteritum by adding specific endings to the stem (e.g., machen → machte). Irregular verbs have unique stem changes (e.g., gehen → ging).
- Perfekt (Present Perfect): Commonly used in spoken German for past events. It’s formed with the auxiliary verb haben or sein in the present tense plus the past participle of the main verb (e.g., Ich habe gemacht, Ich bin gegangen).
- Plusquamperfekt (Past Perfect): Describes an action that occurred before another past action. Formed with the auxiliary verb hatte or war in the Präteritum plus the past participle (e.g., Ich hatte gemacht, Ich war gegangen).
Understanding when and how to use these past tenses will greatly improve your ability to describe past experiences in German.
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Table of Contents
- Perfekt (Present Perfect)
The German Perfekt (Present Perfect) tense, explaining how to form and use it with auxiliary verbs haben and sein, past participles, and word order.
- Präteritum (Simple Past)
Präteritum (simple past) is a German verb tense used to describe actions or states that were completed in the past.
- Plusquamperfekt (Past Perfect)
The Plusquamperfekt is the German past perfect tense, used to describe actions that happened before another past event. It combines the simple past of auxiliary verbs haben or sein with the past participle.
Last updated: Wed Jun 18, 2025