Table of Contents
- 1 How do you say past tense in German?
- 2 How do you say simple past in German?
- 3 What is Gegangen?
- 4 What are the two past tenses in German?
- 5 How do you use past?
- 6 What is ins in German?
- 7 How do you say past perfect tense in German?
- 8 How is the past tense used in German?
- 9 How do you say half past in German?
How do you say past tense in German?
The simple past tense endings are: -te (ich, er/sie/es), -test (du), -tet (ihr), and -ten (Sie, wir, sie [pl.]). Unlike English, the past tense ending is not always the same: I played = ich spielte, we played = wir spielten.
How do you say simple past in German?
Germans have two past tenses, one for spoken language and one for written language. The one for writing about the past is called the simple past in English, in German it is das Präteritum….
| Pronoun | Present Tense | Simple Past |
|---|---|---|
| ich | spiele | spielte |
| du | spielst | spieltest |
| er/sie/es | spielt | spieltet |
| wir | spielen | spielten |
What is Gegangen?
you go/you are going. sie/Sie. gehen. GAY-ehn. they/you go/are going.
What is plusquamperfekt in German?
The Past Perfect Tense (das Plusquamperfekt) in German: In German, as in English, the past perfect describes a time previous to another in the past. It is constructed just like the present perfect tense, except that the auxiliary “haben” or “sein” is in its simple past form: “hatte” or “war.”
How do you use past tense in German sentences?
The majority of past tense German sentences are constructed using the verb haben, however when talking about something movement related, you would use the verb sein. The second part is the past tense version of the German verb called the past participle. This is equivalent to played, walked, gone etc. in English.
What are the two past tenses in German?
Speaking of verbs, you’ve probably noticed that German has 2 past tenses: the simple past (Imperfekt) and the present perfect (Perfekt).
How do you use past?
Using the past simple
- We use it with finished actions, states or habits in the past when we have a finished time word (yesterday, last week, at 2 o’clock, in 2003).
- We use it with finished actions, states or habits in the past when we know from general knowledge that the time period has finished.
What is ins in German?
“ins” is the contraction of (in + das).
Is Sein past tense?
The simple past (also called preterite) is a grammatical tense used to express something in the past. It is mostly used in written language, e.g. in newspaper articles and literature. The verbs sein and haben, however, are often used in spoken language in the simple past tense too.
What is Präteritum in German?
The Präteritum is equivalent to the English Simple Past tense, so to speak. But usually, the Präteritum is not used in everyday language in German. It is rather used as a literary language. Germans commonly opt for the Perfekt in their speech in order to refer to the past – which will be discussed in my upcoming post.
How do you say past perfect tense in German?
The past perfect tense is used to describe an event that happened before another event or a certain point in the past. It is built with the past simple form of the auxiliary verbs ‘to have’ (hatte) or ‘to be’ (war) and the past participle (prefix ge- + sufix -t for regular verbs and -en for irregular verbs).
How is the past tense used in German?
Any regular German verb uses the basic -te ending to form the simple past, similar to the -ed past ending in English. The past-tense ending is added to the verb stem exactly as in the present tense.
How do you say half past in German?
An hour is divided up like a pie into quarters ( viertel) and halves ( halb ). For ‘half past,’ you say halb and the next hour. ‘Halb acht’ = 7:30, i.e., half (way to) eight. After is nach. ‘Es ist zehn nach zwei’ = 2:10 (It’s ten after two).
When do you use Imperfekt past tense in German?
To be precise and technical, the Imperfekt or “narrative past” tense refers to a past event that is not yet fully completed (Latin perfect ), but I have never seen how this applies to its actual use in German in any practical way.
Where does the word past perfect come from?
Its name comes from the fact that the “present” tense form of the auxiliary verb is used, and the word “perfect,” which, as we mentioned above, is Latin for “done/completed.” (The past perfect [pluperfect, Plusquamperfekt] uses the simple past tense of the auxiliary verb.)