Key learning points

1. Add suffix -chen or -lein to create diminutive nouns with the English equivalent meaning ‘little’.
2. Use the imperfect tense in German to narrate past events, mainly in writing.
3. Singular weak imperfect verbs add -te to the stem for ‘ich’ and ‘er, sie, es’ and an additional -st for the ‘du’ form.
4. Strong verbs have an irregular stem including a vowel change, and don’t add -te; ‘du’ forms add -st to the stem.

Keywords

• Diminutive - word form for a smaller, cuter version of something, made by adding to or modifying the original word

• -chen, -lein - noun suffix creating diminutive nouns with the English equivalent meaning ‘little’, e.g., 'Haus' → 'Häuschen', 'Tisch' → 'Tischlein'

• Imperfect - German single-word past tense used mainly to narrate past events in writing; e.g., 'war', 'hatte', 'gab', 'fand'

• Strong verb (imperfect) - forms the imperfect by changing the stem vowel, without the -te ending ('ich', 'er', 'sie', 'es'), but with -st ending ('du')

Common misconception