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- The perfect is built with the auxiliary verbs haben or sein in the present tense and the past
participle, which is always at the end of the sentence
- Sein is used for all verbs which express movement and change of location/condition
- Haben is used for all other verbs
e.g. Peter ist nach Spanien gereist. (Peter travelled to Spain) – change of location
Ich habe gestern Musik gehört. (I listened to music yesterday) – no change
- Haben is always used for transitive verbs (verbs with accusative), regardless of they
express a change or not:
Ich habe die Tür geöffnet. (I have opened the door) – „to open“ is a transitive verb
Past participle
*Verbs which end in –IEREN form the participle without -GE, as well as verbs which start with -
be, -ver, -zer, -miss, –ent,-ge, er.
e.g. Wie lange hast du telefoniert? Ich habe meine Oma besucht. (I visited my
grandma.)
*Verbs with separable prefixes form the participle with -GE- between the prefix and the verb
Hast du das Licht ausgemacht? (Did you turn the light of?) Hast du Milch eingekauft?
Irregular verbs:
The past participle of the irregular Verbs usually ends in –EN and it has to be learned by heart,
since there are no definitive rules for forming it. The most common irregular verbs are:
e.g. Ich habe dich gestern auf der Straße gesehen. (I saw you yesterday on the street.)
Ich bin vor 2 Tagen aus Deutschland gekommen. (I came 2 days ago from Germany.)
Präteritum
Präteritum is another past tense in German. It is used for the verbs haben and sein and the modal
verbs. The use for other verbs is not that common.