How do you form the perfect tense in German?

The perfect tense is a compound tense. This is because a sentence in the perfect tense is constructed from an auxiliary verb and a past participle.Let's use the simple sentence "I have played" as an example.Firstly, we have the auxiliary verb. This verb is conjugated and will either be 'haben' (to have) or 'sein' (to be). If there is movement in the verb, we will use 'sein'; if there is no movement, we will use 'haben'.Since there is no movement in the sentence, we will use 'haben':I have- Ich habeAfter the auxiliary verb, we have the past participle., which in this case is 'played'. To form the past participle in German, we need to take the infinitive, replace the -en ending with -t, and add ge- to beginning.spielen:spielen ---> spielt ---> gespieltWe now have our perfect tense sentence. Ich habe gespielt

Answered by Tom G. German tutor

1070 Views

See similar German GCSE tutors

Related German GCSE answers

All answers ▸

How do I differentiate between haben and sein verbs when using perfect past?


When do I use 'sein' and when do I use 'haben' in the past tense?


How do you use the Nominative Case in German?


Deine deutsche Freunde Julia hat dich über einen Urlaub gefragt. Du schreibst Julia einen Brief über deinen Lieblingsurlaub. Schrieb: Wo bist du gefahren, wer bist du mitgefahren, wie war den Urlaub, über deine Pläne für nächstes Jahr.


We're here to help

contact us iconContact usWhatsapp logoMessage us on Whatsapptelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo
Cookie Preferences