Key learning points

1. Form the perfect tense with ‘haben’ or ‘sein’, plus a past participle, placed at the end of the clause.
2. The imperfect tense is a single-word past tense, using endings attached to the verb stem. It is mostly written.
3. Strong verbs have irregular stems in the imperfect tense. The past participles of some verbs are also irregular.
4. The imperfect tense forms ‘hatte’, ‘war’, and ‘es gab’ are often used in spoken as well as written German.
5. Use ‘früher’ with a past tense to mean ‘in the past’ or ‘used to’.

Keywords

• Perfect tense - past tense formed using either ‘haben’ or ‘sein’ with a past participle, which goes to the end of the clause, e.g., 'ich habe das gemacht'

• Imperfect tense - single-word past tense, used mainly to narrate past events in writing, e.g., 'ich machte'

• Past participle - verb form that forms the perfect tense, together with 'haben' or 'sein', e.g., 'gemacht', 'gesehen'

Common misconception