Reference · module 8
Talking about the past
Everything this module explains, on one page.
Ich habe gelernt
Say what you did, in the past Germans actually speak in.
- Ich habe gelernt. Two words for one past: haben takes the second slot and the verb itself, changed, goes to the very end. It is the same bracket the modal verbs build.
- That end form is built from the verb: lernen becomes gelernt, machen becomes gemacht, arbeiten becomes gearbeitet. Ge- at the front, -t at the back, and the stem in between.
- Germans use this for almost everything past when they speak. The other past tense exists and belongs mostly to books, so this is the one worth having first.
The mistake you are about to make
Ich habe gelernt Deutsch.
Ich habe Deutsch gelernt.
"I have learned German" keeps the two verb words together, so gelernt will stay next to habe. German puts it last, and everything else in the sentence goes between the halves.
Gegessen, getrunken
Build the past form of the verbs you use most.
- The regular recipe is ge- plus the stem plus -t: kaufen becomes gekauft, sagen becomes gesagt, spielen becomes gespielt. For a regular verb this never varies.
- The most common verbs are not regular. They end in -en instead, and the vowel often shifts: essen becomes gegessen, trinken becomes getrunken, sprechen becomes gesprochen, sehen becomes gesehen.
- And a verb that already starts with a prefix takes no ge- at all: verstehen becomes verstanden, bekommen stays bekommen. Nothing is put in front of a syllable that is already there.
The mistake you are about to make
Ich habe getrinkt.
Ich habe getrunken.
English drink/drunk changes its vowel too, which makes the -t ending feel like the safe default. The commonest verbs are irregular: trinken gives getrunken, essen gives gegessen.
Hast du gegessen?
Ask about the past, and say what did not happen.
- Hast du gegessen? The question moves haben to the front, exactly as it moved the modal verb, and the end form stays at the end where it already was.
- Nicht goes immediately before that end form: Ich habe nicht gegessen. It is the last thing before the last word, and it never moves further.
- Schon means already and noch nicht means not yet. They are the two short answers to Hast du gegessen? — Ja, schon. Nein, noch nicht.
The mistake you are about to make
Nein, nicht noch.
Nein, noch nicht.
"Not yet" in that order comes out as nicht noch. German says it the other way round — noch nicht, literally "still not" — and the pair is fixed.
Ich bin gekommen
Use the short list of verbs that build the past with sein.
- Some verbs build the past with sein rather than haben: Ich bin gekommen, ich bin gegangen. The shape is identical and only the first word changes.
- The rule is movement or a change of state: gehen, kommen, fahren, and also bleiben and sein itself. Everything else takes haben, so this is a short list rather than a second system.
- Sein is its own case: Ich bin in Berlin gewesen. There is also the shorter ich war, which is what Germans actually say, and both are correct.
The mistake you are about to make
Ich habe gekommen.
Ich bin gekommen.
English uses "have" for every verb there is, so haben will feel safe everywhere. Verbs of motion take sein instead: ich bin gekommen, never ich habe gekommen.
Gestern
Say when it happened, and keep the sentence in order.
- Gestern is yesterday, vorgestern the day before that, letzte Woche last week, letztes Jahr last year. Four words that place a sentence in the past on their own.
- They usually open the sentence, and then the verb still comes second: Gestern habe ich gearbeitet. Ich moves behind the verb, and nothing else changes at all.
- Which gives the whole shape at once: Gestern habe ich Deutsch gelernt. Time first, haben second, the middle in the middle, and the end form last.
The mistake you are about to make
Gestern ich habe gearbeitet.
Gestern habe ich gearbeitet.
"Yesterday I worked" keeps the subject in front, and moving gestern to the start changes nothing in English. In German the first slot is now taken, so the verb claims the second.