present Perfect Tense in German Grammar
How to use the German present tense
Introduction
The present perfect is a past tense. It is used for actions completed in the recent past. In spoken German, the Present Perfect Tense is often used instead of the Past Tense. We can translate the perfect with the English simple past tense.
Usage
We use the German perfect tense to express:
-
a completed action in the past, focusing on the result of the action
Example: Gestern Abend hat Otto sein Auto gewaschen. Last night Otto washed his car.
Result: The car is now clean.
Er hat sich vorgenommen, es jetzt immer sauber zu halten. He decided to keep it clean all the time now.
Result: He doesn't want to be so untidy any more.
-
an action that will be completed by a certain point in the future
Example: Aber bis nächste Woche ist sein Auto bestimmt wieder schmutzig. But by next week his car will definitely be dirty again.
The time in the future must be named concretely, otherwise you use the future perfect.
Conjugation of German verbs in the present tense
To conjugate verbs in the perfect tense we need the present tense form of sein/haben and the past participle (Partizip II).
.jpg)
%20(5).jpg)
%20(4).jpg)
When to use to have or to be
The verbs sein (to be) and haben (to have) are auxiliary or helping verbs that we use in the present perfect tense.
We use sein to conjugate the present perfect with:
-
Verbs of movement without an accusative object: gehen, laufen, fahren, fallen, fliegen, kommen, reisen, stolpern, stürzen
Example: Alle Kollegen sind zu seinem Auto gegangen. All his colleagues went to his car.
-
Verbs expressing a change of state:
aufwachen, wake up, einschlafen, fall asleep, frieren, freeze, tauen, thaw, sterben, die
Example: Ich bin eingeschlafen. I fell asleep.
-
The following verbs:
werden, become, sein, be, misslingen, fail, gelingen, succeed, geschehen, happen bleiben, remain -
Example: Was ist mit Otto passiert? What happened to Otto?
We use haben to conjugate the present perfect with:
-
Verbs with an accusative object
Example: Otto hat sein Auto gewaschen. Otto has washed his car.
-
Verbs without an accusative object that do not express a change of state or place.
Example: Er hat geputzt. He has cleaned.
There are three important verbs that do not fall under the rule of intransitive verbs and must be used with "sein" as an auxiliary verb:
bleiben, werden and sein. They do not express movement, but they must take sein.
Past Participle - The past participle (Partizip II) is formed in the following ways:
Regular verbs are weak verbs (schwache Verben)
Regular verbs, also called schwache Verben / weak verbs, form the past participle II with ge...t and the verb stem.
Example: lernen - gelernt
Irregular verbs are strong verbs (starke Verben) and mixed verbs (gemischte Verben)
Irregular verbs are verbs that change their verb stem in the simple past and/or the participle form. In German grammar, there are two types of irregular verbs: strong verbs and mixed verbs.
Strong verbs form the past participle with ge...en.
Example:
Mixed verbs form the past participle with ge...t.
Example:
sehen – gesehen (sehen-sah-gesehen)
gehen – gegangen (gehen-ging-gegangen)
haben – gehabt (haben-hatte-gehabt)
bringen – gebracht (bringen-brachte-gebracht)
Exceptions
-
We add an -et to weak/mixed verbs when the root ends in d/t.
Example: arbeiten - gearbeitet
-
Verbs ending in -ieren form their past participle without ge.
Example: probieren - probiert
-
Non-seperable verbs form their past participle without ge.
Example: bekommen - bekommen
-
With separable verbs, the ge comes after the prefix.
Example: einkaufen - eingekauft