How do you form the perfect tense in German?

The perfect tense is a compound tense. This is because a sentence in the perfect tense is constructed from an auxiliary verb and a past participle.Let's use the simple sentence "I have played" as an example.Firstly, we have the auxiliary verb. This verb is conjugated and will either be 'haben' (to have) or 'sein' (to be). If there is movement in the verb, we will use 'sein'; if there is no movement, we will use 'haben'.Since there is no movement in the sentence, we will use 'haben':I have- Ich habeAfter the auxiliary verb, we have the past participle., which in this case is 'played'. To form the past participle in German, we need to take the infinitive, replace the -en ending with -t, and add ge- to beginning.spielen:spielen ---> spielt ---> gespieltWe now have our perfect tense sentence. Ich habe gespielt

TG
Answered by Tom G. German tutor

1213 Views

See similar German GCSE tutors

Related German GCSE answers

All answers ▸

What is the difference between der, die and das?


Translate the following: "In Deutschland feiern wir viele Feste. Ostern und Weihnachten sind die größten Feste. Natürlich gibt es auch noch mehr Feiertage, aber an den anderen gibt es normalerweise keine Geschenke."


How would one change 'ich habe' to be in the past tense?


Beschreiben Sie deine Familie.


We're here to help

contact us iconContact usWhatsapp logoMessage us on Whatsapptelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

© MyTutorWeb Ltd 2013–2025

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy
Cookie Preferences