Key learning points

1. Revisit sound-symbol correspondences to strengthen listening, speaking, reading aloud, and writing skills.
2. Form the perfect tense with a present form of 'haben' or 'sein', plus a past participle, e.g., 'ich habe das gemacht'.
3. The past participle of many verbs is: ge- + verb stem + -t. Some strong verbs use ge- + verb stem + -en.
4. Verbs that start with unstressed prefixes be-, ver-, ent-, er- do not add ge-, e.g., ‘er hat besucht’.
5. The past participle ‘gefallen’ is used with ‘sein’ for ‘fallen’ (‘to fall’) and ‘haben’ for ‘gefallen’ (‘to please’).

Keywords

• SSC - abbreviation for sound-symbol correspondence, the relationship between letters and their sounds

• Perfect tense - a verb tense that describes completed actions in the past, e.g., 'I said', 'she played'

• Past participle - verb form that forms the perfect tense, together with the auxiliary verb 'haben' or 'sein'

Common misconception