The Preterit / Präteritum / Imperfekt is a tense of the past and expresses the timeframe as the Perfect. The difference between the two tenses is a stylistic or regional one. The Preterit / Präteritum is rather used in the North.
The Preterit / Präteritum is especially used in the written language, as e.g. in newspapers, novels, ... And
- Auxiliary verbs: haben (to have), sein (to be), werden (to become)
- Modal verbs: dürfen (have the permission), können (can), möchten (would like to), mögen (like), müssen (must / have to), sollen (should), wollen (want to)
- Full verbs: brauchen (to need), bringen (to bring), denken (to think), fahren (to drive), gehen (to go), kommen (to come), lassen (let), laufen (to walk), nehmen (to take), rufen (to call), schlafen (to sleep), wissen (to know), ziehen (to pull)
There are different ways to form the Preterit / Präteritum in German.
There are:
- Regular verbs: Regular verbs form the Preterit / Präteritum by adding a –t– between the verb stem and the personal ending...
- Irregular verbs: The Preterit / Präteritum of irregular verbs is formed by changing the stem.
- Seperable verbs / trennbare Verben
- Modal verbs
|
regular |
irregular |
seperable |
modalverb |
infinitive |
machen |
sehen |
ankommen |
können |
ich |
machte |
sah |
kam _ an |
konnte |
infinitive |
to make |
to see |
to arrive |
can |
past |
made |
saw |
arrived |
could |
Irregular verbs form the Preterit / Präteritum like in the following tables:
German - Irregular Verbs: List: a - b
German - Irregular Verbs: List: c - f
German - Irregular Verbs: List: k - m
German - Irregular Verbs: List: n - r
German - Irregular Verbs: List: s - sch
German - Irregular Verbs: List: se - st
German - Irregular Verbs: List: t - v
German - Irregular Verbs: List: w - z
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