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German Perfect Tense

(das Perfekt)

☰ List of all topics in the level A2

Level A2 Introduction Unit 20: Dative Case in German Unit 21: Declension of German Nouns Unit 22: Dative Pronouns in German Unit 23: German Dative Prepositions Unit 24: Separable Verbs in German Unit 25: Two-way Prepositions in German Unit 26: Reflexive Verbs in German Unit 27: German Perfect Tense Unit 28: German Particles Unit 29: Future Tense in German Unit 30: Passive Voice in German

This page contains topics:

1. "Das Perfekt" in German
2. Construction of perfect tense in German
   1. Conjugation of the verb “haben”
   2. Conjugation of the verb "sein"
3. When to use "haben" and "sein" in the perfect tense
   1. Verbs that take sein
   2. When to use haben?
4. Perfect tense of sentences with regular verbs
5. Perfect tense of German regular verbs with t, d, m, or n endings
6. Perfect tense of German regular separable verbs
7. Perfect tense of German regular verbs with the ending "-ieren"
8. Perfect tense of German regular inseparable verbs
9. Perfect tense of German irregular verbs
10. Past participle of modal verbs in German
11. Asking questions in the German perfect tense

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"Das Perfekt" in German

The construction of the perfect tense in German is almost similar to that in English. However, the application of the present perfect differs slightly across the two languages. The present perfect in German (das Perfekt) is also known as the "spoken past tense." It describes events and actions in the near past.

The expressions of the near past are different in spoken German and written German. The perfect (das Perfekt) is used predominantly in spoken language and informal writings. The preterite, or past indefinite form (das Präteritum ), is mainly used in written texts. Newspapers, magazines, literature, etc. use preterite (das Präteritum); similarly, the news on television or radio reports of past events are in the preterite (das Präteritum), although these are spoken. Our goal in this lesson is to learn spoken past tense in German, i.e., Das Perfekt (perfect). Depending on the situation, when translated into English, German perfect (das Perfekt) can give meanings of both past indefinite and past perfect.

Construction of the perfect tense in German

The perfect in German (das Perfekt) consists of two main parts:

1. the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb haben or sein
2. and the past participle form of the main verb.

For example, the perfect of the sentence:
Ich arbeite. (I am working. / I work.) would be
Ich habe gearbeitet. (I have worked. / I worked.)

In German, the past participle is called Partizip II.
The auxiliary verb ("haben" or "sein") is conjugated and displays the grammatical person. The past participle form is immutable and describes the type of action or activity in the sentence. Please see the following German perfect tense examples:
Ich habe gearbeitet. (I have worked. / I worked.)
Er hat gearbeitet. (He has worked. / He worked.)
Wir haben auch gestern gearbeitet. (We have also worked yesterday. / We also worked yesterday.)
Du hast gearbeitet. (You worked. / You have worked.)

The past participle form (Partizip II ) of the primary or main verb is always the last part of the sentence.
Tobias und Andrea haben bis 9 Uhr gearbeitet. (Tobias and Andrea worked until 9 o'clock.)
Meine Eltern sind mit dem Auto nach Berlin gefahren. (My parents drove to Berlin by car.)

In level A1, we have already learned the conjugations of the German verbs Haben (to have) and sein (to be). For revision, please see the following conjugation tables for "haben" and "sein":

Conjugation of the verb “haben”

Conjugation of verb "sein"

When to use "haben" and "sein" in the perfect tense

Certain verbs in German take "sein" or "haben" as an auxiliary verb in perfect tense formation.

Verbs that take sein

"Sein" is used as an auxiliary verb when making perfects of "verbs of movement," i.e., verbs that show any change in the state or change of place.
For example:
gehen (to go),
laufen (to walk, to run),
rennen (to run),
fallen (to fall),
springen (to jump),
ankommen (to arrive),
aufstehen (to getup),
sterben (to die),
einschlafen (to fall asleep),
wachsen (to grow),
fahren (to travel, to drive), etc.

Some verbs do not show any change in the state or place but take "sein" as an auxiliary verb to form their perfect. These are:
bleiben (to stay),
passieren (to stay),
werden (to beceom),
gelingen (to be successful ),
sein (to be) itself, and all transitive verbs.

When to use haben?

In perfect formation, "haben" is more frequent than "sein." All modal verbs, transitive verbs, and reflexive verbs take "haben" as an auxiliary verb to form perfect.

Perfect tense of sentences with regular verbs

To build the past participle (Partizip 2) of a regular verb, we take the verb stem and add the prefix "ge-" and suffix "t" to it. Please see the following table for more clarity.

Please see the following German perfect tense examples with regular verbs.

Letztes Jahr habe ich zwei Hunde gehabt. (Last year I had two dogs.)
Die Kinder haben eine Sandburg gebaut. (The children have built a sandcastle.)
Ich habe zwei Jacken im Supermarkt gekauft. (I bought two jackets in the supermarket.)
Ich mache kein Spaß. Warum hast du gelacht? (I'm not kidding. Why did you laugh?)
das Jahr (year) plural: die Jahre, Letztes Jahr (Last year), der Hund (dog) plural: die Hunde, die Sandburg (sandcastle) plural: die Sandburgen, die Burg (castle) plural: die Burgen, die Jacke (jacket) plural: die Jacken, der Supermarkt (supermarket) plural: die Supermärkte, der Markt (market) plural: die Märkte, der Marktplatz (marketplace), der Marktpreis (market price), Spaß (fun)

Perfect tense of German regular verbs with t, d, m, or n endings

If the stem of a regular German verb ends in the letters t, d, m, or n, adding just the suffix "-t" can cause a pronunciation problem. Therefore, in the past participle (Partizip 2), an "e" is inserted between the verb stem and "-t". Please see the below table for an explanation.

Example sentences:

Ich habe heute viel gearbeitet. (I worked a lot today.)
Warum hast du meine Frage nicht geantwortet? (Why didn't you answer my question?)
Gestern hat es viel geregnet. (Yesterday it rained a lot.)
heute (today), Gestern (yesterday), morgen (tomorrow), der Morgen (morning) plural: die Morgen, viel (a lot, many), die Frage (question) plural: die Fragen

Perfect tense of regular separable verbs

Regular German verbs with separable prefixes (regular separable verbs) follow the following pattern to form their past participle (Partizip II).
prefix-ge-verb stem-t
ein-ge-kauf-t

Example sentence:

Einkaufen: Was hast du heute eingekauft? (What did you buy today?)
Anmachen: Bitte machen Sie die Heizung an. (Please turn on the heater.)
Anmachen: Ich habe die schon angemacht. (I've already turned it on.)
Mitmachen: Beim Schwimmen mache ich nicht mit. (I don't participate in swimming.)
Mitmachen: Alle Studenten haben im Wettbewerb mitgemacht. (All students participated in the competition.)
die Heizung (heating, heater) plural: die Heizungen, schon (already), der Wettbewerb (competition, contest) plural: die Wettbewerbe

Perfect tense of regular verbs with the ending "-ieren"

The past participle (Partizip II) of German verbs that end in the letters "-ieren" is formed without adding the prefix "-ge."

Example sentence:

Was hast du in Berlin studiert? (What did you study in Berlin?)
Ich habe in Berlin Biologie studiert. (I studied biology in Berlin.)
Haben Sie schon alle Studenten informiert? (Have you already informed all students?)
Die Patienten sind gestern zwei Stunden spaziert. (The patients walked two hours yesterday.)
Was ist mit ihm passiert? (What happened to him?)

Perfect tense of German regular inseparable verbs

Regular verbs with inseparable prefixes also form their past participle (Partizip II) without adding "ge-" in the beginning.

Example sentence:

Ich habe immer dieses Auto benutzt. (I have always used this car.)
Ich habe ihm hundert Euro bezahlt. (I paid him hundred euros.)
Hast du deine Eltern am Wochenende besucht? (Did you visit your parents on the weekend?)
Wem gehört dieses Auto? (Who owns this car? Whose car is this?)
Dieses Auto gehört mir. (This car belongs to me.)
Dieses Auto hat mir gehört. (This car was mine.)
Dieses Auto war mein. (This car was mine.)
Dieses Auto ist mein. (This car is mine.)

Perfect tense of German irregular verbs

The ending of the past participle (Partizip II) of German irregular verbs is "-en." Besides, there is often a vowel change in the verb stem. Therefore, there is no hard-and-fast rule to define the formation of Partizip II from irregular verbs.

Example sentence:

Hast du die Zeitung gelesen? (Have you read the newspaper?)
Gestern haben wir nach Berlin gefahren. (Yesterday we drove to Berlin.)
Wann bist du gekommen? (When did you come?)
Ich bin heute Morgen gekommen. (I came this morning.)
Etwas ist aus deiner Tasche gefallen. Ich habe gerade selber gesehen. (Something has fallen out of your bag. I have just seen myself.)
die Tasche (pocket, bag, pouch) plural: die Taschen

Partizip II of German modal verbs

When the modal verbs is the only verb in a phrase, the perfect tense of modal verbs is rarely employed in practice. To represent the past of modal verbs, the Präteritum (past indefinite form) is used instead. The rule for making past participles (Partizip 2) is the same:
wollen -> gewollt
müssen -> gemusst
mögen -> gemocht
dürfen -> gedurft
können -> gekonnt

Example sentences:

Ich habe dieses Auto nicht gewollt. (I did not want this car.)
Ich habe die Arbeit nicht gedurft. (I was not allowed to work.)

If a sentence has a modal verb with another main verb, the formation of the past participle (Partizip 2) is a little different. It follows the rule:
haben + infinitive form of main verb + infinitive of modal verb

For example, we take the sentence, He wants to come. We know in German, it would be Er will kommen. The past tense of this sentence, "he wanted to come," would be:

Example sentences:
Er will nicht nach Hause gehen. (Er will nicht nach Hause gehen.)
Er hat nicht nach Hause gehen wollen. (He did not want to go home.)

Ich möchte dieses Auto fahren. (I want to drive this car.)
Ich habe dieses Auto fahren möchten. (I wanted to drive this car.)

Die Studenten wollen nicht kommen. (The students do not want to come.)
Die Studenten haben nicht kommen wollen. (The students did not want to come.)

Asking questions in the German perfect tense

If the perfect tense question is without an interrogative pronoun, the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb (haben or sein) occupies the first place in the perfect interrogative sentence. The past participle (Partizip 2) of the main verb remains the last element in the question.

Haben Sie schon gearbeitet? (Have you already worked?)
Haben Sie schon die Arbeit fertiggemacht? (Have you already finished the work?)
Sind Ihre Eltern mit dem Auto nach Berlin gefahren? (Did your parents drive to Berlin?)
etwas fertigmachen or fertig machen (to finish something, to complete somthing, to prepare something)
When written as separate words i.e., fertig machen, the past participle would also be separated: fertig gemacht.

If the perfect tense question is with an interrogative pronoun (W-Frage), the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb (haben or sein) comes after the interrogative pronoun. The past participle (Partizip 2) of the main verb remains the last element in the interrogative sentence.

Wann haben Sie gearbeitet? (When did you work?)
Wie haben Sie die Arbeit fertiggemacht? (How have you completed the work?)
Warum sind Ihre Eltern mit dem Auto nach Berlin gefahren? (Why did your parents drive by car to Berlin?)

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