past tense formed with the present tense of 'sein' or 'haben' and a past participle

verb form that forms the perfect tense, together with the auxiliary verb 'sein' or 'haben'

single-word past tense used mainly to narrate past events in writing

A1 - 1 Musik und Mode sind für alle Teenager ganz wichtig! Das war schon ...

A1 - 2 Die Regierung der DDR hat aber alles streng kontrolliert. Deshalb war ...

A1 - 3 Bands haben nur auf Deutsch gesungen. Da englische Lieder verboten ...

A1 - 4 Ostdeutsche Kleidung hat den Jugendlichen gar nicht gefallen.

A1 - 5 Fast niemand hat eine blaue Jeans aus Amerika getragen, aber viele ...

A1 - full text - Musik und Mode sind für alle Teenager ganz wichtig! Das war ...

Deutsche Geschichte: imperfect tense, perfect tense

German

This unit revisits known grammar in the context of German and Austrian history. Pupils revise perfect tense and simple past, negation, word order and adjective agreement.

Communication and the world around us: Geschichte

Always use the imperfect to translate the English simple past, e.g., 'I bought'.

Both the perfect and imperfect can be used when writing in the past tense.

The perfect tense is more common in spoken German than the imperfect.

The perfect tense is a single-verb past tense.

The imperfect is formed with ‘sein’ or ‘haben’ and a past participle.

Write in German: 'we thought'. Use the perfect tense.

Write in German: 'she played'. Use the imperfect tense.

Order the words to say: 'Don't be so loud.'

Write in English: 'Die Tür ist weit offen.'

Starter Quiz