Digital Detox: perfect tense, imperfect tense, 'gerade'
I can use strong verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses, including with 'gerade', in the context of technology and digital detox.
- Year 10
- AQA
Digital Detox: perfect tense, imperfect tense, 'gerade'
I can use strong verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses, including with 'gerade', in the context of technology and digital detox.
Lesson details
Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons
Key learning points
- Strong verbs form past participles with 'ge-' and '-en'. Some have a vowel change, such as 'ei' to 'ie' or 'ie' to 'o'.
- The imperfect tense is usually used in written texts for narration. The perfect tense is much more common in speaking.
- The imperfect tense forms ‘hatte’, ‘war’, and ‘es gab’ are often used in spoken as well as written German.
- Use 'gerade' with the perfect tense to mean 'just (now)'.
- Use 'gerade' with the imperfect tense to express that the action was taking place when something else happened.
Keywords
Perfect tense - past tense formed with the present tense of 'sein' or 'haben' and a past participle
Imperfect tense - single-word past tense used mainly to narrate past events in writing
Strong verb (perfect tense) - verb whose past participle adds ‘en’ and often changes the stem vowel, e.g., 'geflogen'.
Strong verb (imperfect tense) - verb which changes the stem vowel in the imperfect tense, e.g., ‘blieb’
Gerade - adverb meaning 'just (now)'
Common misconception
Always use the imperfect tense to translate the English simple past, e.g., 'I chatted online.'.
The perfect tense is far more common in German and is used for both the English simple past and perfect tense in speaking. The imperfect is used mainly to narrate past events in writing. However, 'hatte', 'war' and 'es gab' are used in speaking too.
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of these words means 'instead'?
Q2.Match the German and English.
Q3.Match the German and English.
