Mastering German Tenses

In comparison to English, German has a rather simple verb system. With only six tenses and fairly consistent rules for usage, German verb tenses can be mastered in no time.

Mastering German verb tenses is a vital step towards expressing yourself in German. In this article, we’ll have an in-depth look at how to form these tenses, when they’re used, and what English tense or tenses correspond to them.

Each German verb tense has a direct English counterpart in form. First, let’s cover the two simple tenses. These tenses are called “simple” because they consist of only one verb. They happen to be rather “simple” to learn as well.

Simple present tense

The present tense is formed by removing the -en ending from a verb, and replacing it with the prescribed ending, depending on the subject of the verb (the noun or pronoun that is doing the verb). This process is known as conjugation.

For example, the verb machen (to do or to make) is conjugated like this:

Look over that chart again and take note of the endings. You’ll want to memorize them.

Some verbs require a vowel change for the du-form and the singular noun/pronoun-forms. You’ll start to recognize these the more you read and hear German.

German has only one present tense form of verbs. This is a catch-all tense for expressing things that are happening right now. In English, the present tense is divided into three forms: the simple present, I do; the present continuous, I am doing; and the present perfect continuous, I have been doing.

German only uses the simple present form, but has other ways to express that something is happening regularly over an extended period of time, thus ich mache can mean “I do”, “I am doing”, and “I have been doing.” The simple present tense can also be used to express something that will happen in the future, if your listener can pick this up from the context. So, if you and your friend are talking about going to the movies later today, you could say, “Ich bringe mein Geld mit” (I will bring my money with me), since you and your friend would know that you’re talking about your plans for later today.

Simple/narrative past tense

Most verbs in the simple past tense are formed in a similar manner to the simple present tense. You still remove the -en from the verb, only you add a different set of conjugational endings. Most of the conjugations use the same ending as the present with a -t added to the beginning of the ending, but with one exception. Can you tell which is it?

The conjugational paradigm for most verbs in the simple past tense is formed like this:

Did you notice it? The ending for verbs conjugated for singular nouns and pronouns take a -te ending, just like the ich-form.

You might notice that this -te is similar to the -ed ending in English. But just like English, there are some verbs that have a different form in the simple past tense. Think about the English verb to swim. It’s past tense isn’t swimmed, just like German’s simple past tense for schwimmen isn’t schwimmten. These verbs show their past tense by changing the vowel in the middle of the verb, and they take another set of endings. Verbs that show their past tense through a vowel change are called strong verbs, on the other hand, those that take a -te ending are weak. Strong verbs’ vowel patterns have to be memorized. You can find a long list of them here. Below is an example of a strong verb conjugated in the simple past tense:

Notice that the ich-form and the singular noun or pronoun forms do not take any endings at all with strong verbs in the simple past tense.

Two out of the six German verb tenses are used to express that something has happened directly in the past. English uses three direct past tenses: the simple past, I did; the past continuous, I was doing; and the present perfect, I have done. Each of these English tenses has a slightly different relation to time. For example, I was doing means that something happened repeatedly or continuously for a period of time. While English makes this subtle distinction, German isn’t so picky about it, and both past tenses have the exact same meaning in German. However, the simple past tends to mostly be used in written language, such as fairy tales and longer stories, hence its second name, the narrative past. There are, however, several verbs which are commonly used in the simple past, even in conversational German: sein (to be), haben (to have), werden (to become), sagen (to say), machen (to make or to do), wissen (to know), bringen (to bring), sprechen (to speak), as well as all modal verbs. You’ll pick up on these the more conversational German you hear.

Present perfect/conversational past

The present perfect tense is our first compound tense, meaning we use more than one verb to form these tenses. The present perfect tense contains two verb elements, an auxiliary (or helping) verb and the past participle of a verb. We have the same elements in our present perfect tense in English: I have walked, Has he done it?, We have become. Just like in English, we only have to conjugate the helping verb, haben. The past participle stays the same regardless of the subject. Unlike English, any time we have two verbs in the same sentence, the first verb will go in its normal position, next to the subject. The second verb, in this case the past participle, will go at the end of the clause. Position any objects or adverbs between the two verbs. For example: Er ist vor drei Jahren Artzt geworden (He has become a doctor three years ago).

If the main verb of the sentence (the one we want to put in the past) has its stress or accent on its first syllable like most German verbs, then the past participle will take a ge- prefix. If the stress or accent is on any other syllable, such as with bekommen (to receive) or studieren (to study), you won’t need to add a prefix at all. The second step of forming the past participle is to replace the -en ending with a -t. Thus, the past participle of machen is gemacht.

Here’s machen in its present perfect tense:

You only have to change the ending on the past participle if the verb is weak (takes no vowel change in the simple past). Strong verbs (those whose vowels change in the simple past) keep their -en on the past participle. Thus the past participle of fahren is gefahren. Some strong verbs also have a vowel change in their past participles. These too have to be memorized. The past participle of schwimmen is geschwommen. Here’s beginnen (to begin), as an example of a strong verb in the present perfect tense:

In English, we only have one auxiliary verb for the present perfect tense, to have. German, on the other had, has two, haben and sein. Most verbs take haben as their auxiliary verb, but a few take sein. These are verbs of motion: gehen (to go), fliegen (to fly), fahren (to drive), reiten (to ride or to ride a horse); verbs that describe a change of state: frieren,(to freeze), einschlafen (to go to sleep), wachsen (to grow), sterben (to die); and a few oddballs: sein (to be), werden (to become), bleiben (to stay), passieren or geschehen (to happen), and gelingen (to succeed). Try to memorize these verbs as the ones that take sein as their helping verbs in the present perfect tense. Remember to conjugate your helping verb. Here’s an example of fahren, a verb of motion, taking sein as a helping verb.

To review what we have just learned, the most important things to remember when forming the present perfect tense are to add a ge- to the beginning of the verb if the stress or accent is on the first syllable, to replace the -en with a -t on weak verbs, and that verbs of motion, change of state, to be, to become, to stay, to happen, and to succeed all take sein as their helping verb.

The present perfect in German has the exact same meaning as the simple past, unlike English where each form has a subtly distinct meaning. The present perfect, however, tends to be used much more commonly in spoken conversation and informal writing. If you’re chatting with a friend over the phone or on Facebook about a concert you went to last night, you would probably be more inclined to say, “Sie haben über 20 Lieder gesungen”, as opposed to, “Sie sangen über 20 Lieder”, although both mean, “They sang over 20 songs.”

Past perfect

The last of the past tenses is the past perfect. This one is very similar to the present perfect. It’s formed with a helping verb and a past participle, where only the helping verb sein or haben will be in its simple past form, which is waren or hatten. The past participle is the same as in the present perfect. Remember that the past participle will go at the end of its clause while the helping verb stays in its normal position. Here is machen, a verb that takes haben/hatten as its helping verb, conjugated in the past perfect:

And here’s fahren, a verb of motion, that takes sein/waren as its helping verb:

The past perfect is used in the same situations as in English, that is, when you want to refer to an event that happened further in the past than other events in a narration. You might be telling a story about when you fell off your bike when you were eight years old, and you want to tell your listener that you had received the bike as a gift when you were seven years old. In German this would be, Ich bin mit acht von meinem Fahrrad gefallen. Ich hatte es mit sieben Jahren als Geschenk bekommen. The past perfect tense can be bordered by a sentence in the simple past or in the present perfect.

Future tense

The future tense is another one of our compound tenses with two verbs. The first of these is the verb werden, the future marker. Secondly, we use the normal infinitive of a verb at the end of our clause. This is akin to English’s future construction with will, as in, “He will go with them.” In German this would be, Er wird mit ihnen gehen. Werden is the auxiliary verb, thus the only conjugated verb in the future tense. However, it is a slightly irregular verb, so its conjugational paradigm must be memorized. Here’s machen conjugated for the future:

Did you notice the irregularities in the du and singular noun or pronoun forms? They have a vowel change, and they each drop a consonant.

Although the future can mostly be expressed using the present tense in German if it can be understood by context, we use the future with werden in situations where it’s not so obvious, or if we really want to emphasize that it definitely will happen in the future, not the present.

Future perfect tense

Our last tense is also a compound tense, but it’s the only one that is made up of three verbs instead of two, which makes it a bit trickier. We’ll be using forms that we’ve already learned from our other tenses, namely the future marker werden, the perfect auxiliaries sein or haben, and the past participle, the same three verb forms we need to make the future perfect tense in English. Our finite or conjugated verb for the future perfect tense will be werden. It will be in the normal position next to the subject. Since we can only have one conjugated verb per clause, that means the other verbs, sein or haben (as well as the past participle) will be left unconjugated. The auxiliary verbs will be at the end of the clause, with the past participles right before them.

Let’s have a look at a machen in the future perfect tense:

Of course if you’re working with a verb that normally requires the use of sein as its helping verb, just trade out haben for sein.

Here is fahren again, in its future perfect tense:

Like in English, the future perfect is used to indicate that a future action will be completed before another action, also in the future. If you’d like to say, “I will have done my tasks before my German lesson tomorrow,” you would say, “Ich werde meine Aufgaben vor meinem Deutschunterricht morgen gemacht haben.”

In comparison to English’s twelve verb tenses, I hope that you are encouraged by the relative simplicity of German’s six. This final chart should be a good reference table for compositions to relate English tenses to their German counterparts.

If German verb tenses still seem a bit confusing, do not fret. It took me several years to master them. Just focus on one tense at a time, and then use this article as a review of each tense. Due to the limited scope of this article, some irregular verbs have been omitted. A very useful tool for any German student at any level is Verbix. It shows all the tenses of many German verbs, regular and irregular.

You can read more about English verb tenses here.

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