Home / Courses / German 2 / Unit 1

German 2 Unit 1: The Perfekt with Haben

The Perfekt (conversational past) is how Germans talk about the past in everyday speech. This unit covers the Perfekt with haben, which most verbs use, and how to build the past participle.

Covers: Forming the Perfekt with haben, Past participles of regular (weak) verbs, Past participles of irregular (strong) verbs, Mixed verbs, Verbs without ge- (-ieren and inseparable prefixes), Word order in the Perfekt

Study guide

The Perfekt is a two-part tense. It combines a conjugated form of the helping verb haben with the past participle of the main verb: Ich habe Fußball gespielt (I played soccer, or I have played soccer). The helping verb is in the normal verb position, which is position two in a statement, and it agrees with the subject: ich habe, du hast, er/sie/es hat, wir haben, ihr habt, sie/Sie haben. The past participle never changes form, and it goes to the very end of the clause. English speakers often translate the Perfekt with the simple past (I played), because in spoken German the Perfekt is the normal past tense.

Regular verbs, also called weak verbs, form the past participle with the pattern ge- + stem + -t. Spielen becomes gespielt, machen becomes gemacht, kaufen becomes gekauft and hören becomes gehört. If the stem ends in -t or -d, or in certain consonant clusters such as -gn or -chn, add an extra e before the -t so the word can be pronounced: arbeiten becomes gearbeitet, reden becomes geredet, regnen becomes geregnet, öffnen becomes geöffnet. The stem is the infinitive minus -en (or minus -n for verbs like wandern, which gives gewandert).

Irregular verbs, also called strong verbs, form the past participle with ge- + stem + -en, and the stem vowel often changes. Some keep the infinitive vowel: sehen becomes gesehen, essen becomes gegessen, lesen becomes gelesen, schlafen becomes geschlafen. Others change it: trinken becomes getrunken, finden becomes gefunden, schreiben becomes geschrieben, sprechen becomes gesprochen, nehmen becomes genommen, helfen becomes geholfen. Because the vowel change cannot be predicted from the infinitive, strong participles must be memorized. A third small group, mixed verbs, combine a vowel change with the weak ending -t: bringen becomes gebracht, denken becomes gedacht, kennen becomes gekannt, wissen becomes gewusst.

Two groups of verbs take no ge- at all. Verbs ending in -ieren, which are often borrowed from other languages, form the participle with the stem + -t: studieren becomes studiert, telefonieren becomes telefoniert, fotografieren becomes fotografiert. Verbs with an unstressed inseparable prefix (be-, ver-, er-, ent-, emp-, ge-, zer-, miss-) also drop ge-: besuchen becomes besucht, verstehen becomes verstanden, erzählen becomes erzählt, bekommen becomes bekommen. A useful test is stress: ge- is only added when the first syllable of the verb is stressed. Separable verbs, which you will study later, put ge- between the prefix and the stem, as in eingekauft.

Word order follows the bracket rule (Satzklammer). The conjugated haben sits in position two, the participle closes the clause, and everything else goes between them: Wir haben gestern Abend im Restaurant Pizza gegessen. In a yes/no question, haben moves to position one: Hast du die Hausaufgaben gemacht? In a question-word question, the question word comes first and haben second: Was hast du am Wochenende gemacht? Negation with nicht normally comes near the end, right before the participle: Ich habe das Buch nicht gelesen. Time expressions like gestern, letzte Woche and vor zwei Tagen signal the past and usually appear in the middle field or in position one.

Key ideas

• The Perfekt is the normal spoken past tense in German and is built from haben or sein plus a past participle.
• Most verbs, including all verbs that take a direct object, use haben as the helping verb.
• Weak verbs form the participle as ge- + stem + -t, adding -et after stems ending in -t, -d or certain clusters.
• Strong verbs form the participle as ge- + stem + -en, often with a vowel change that must be memorized.
• Mixed verbs such as bringen, denken, kennen and wissen change the vowel but end in -t.
• Verbs ending in -ieren and verbs with inseparable prefixes take no ge- in the participle.
• The conjugated helping verb is in position two and the participle goes to the end of the clause.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Putting the past participle right after haben instead of at the end of the clause (Ich habe gegessen Pizza).
• Adding ge- to -ieren verbs or inseparable-prefix verbs (gestudiert, gebesucht).
• Giving strong verbs a weak ending, such as getrinkt instead of getrunken or geschreibt instead of geschrieben.
• Forgetting the extra e in participles like gearbeitet and geredet.
• Conjugating the participle to match the subject instead of conjugating haben (Ich habe gespielte).

Before the test, make sure you can

• Form the Perfekt with haben for any subject pronoun.
• Build past participles of weak verbs, including those that need -et.
• Recall the participles of common strong verbs such as essen, trinken, lesen, schreiben, sprechen, nehmen and finden.
• Identify mixed verbs and give their participles.
• Recognize when a verb takes no ge- (-ieren and inseparable prefixes).
• Place haben and the participle correctly in statements, questions and negated sentences.
• Translate a German Perfekt sentence into a natural English past.

Words to know

gestern

yesterday

vorgestern

the day before yesterday

letzte Woche

last week

letztes Jahr

last year

vor zwei Tagen

two days ago

am Wochenende

on the weekend

schon

already

noch nicht

not yet

kaufen

to buy

arbeiten

to work

kochen

to cook

lernen

to learn, to study

besuchen

to visit

telefonieren

to talk on the phone

fotografieren

to take photos

essen – gegessen

to eat – eaten

trinken – getrunken

to drink – drunk

schreiben – geschrieben

to write – written

finden – gefunden

to find – found

nehmen – genommen

to take – taken

sehen – gesehen

to see – seen

Sample practice questions

30 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.