German Present Perfect Summary

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Overview

The present perfect (Ger. Perfekt) is the tense most commonly used when talking about past events.  It also known as the compound past, conversational past or two-piece past. It consists of two elements:

Auxiliary verb haben / sein	Past Participle
agrees with the subject	same for all subjects
second element in main clause	final element in the clause
Examples    Gestern Abend habe ich ferngesehen.    Dann sind sie ins Kino gegangen.

Even though these forms look like the English perfect, they can appear in any past context.  Consequently, depending on the context, wir haben ... gegessen could be rendered 'We ate / did eat / were eating / used to eat / have eaten...'.  The distinctions made among all these variants are only relevant in English.

Selecting the Auxiliary Verb

Use haben unless the verb meets two conditions for formation with sein:

1. The compound past is formed with sein if the verb...


• shows a change of
  position (e.g. fahren, gehen, kommen etc.)
        or
  condition (e.g. werden, sterben, aufwachen etc.)
       and
  
• is intransitive, i.e. does not take an accusative object;
2. otherwise it is formed with haben.

 Note:  sein and bleiben take sein!

Examples
   Wie spät bist du aufgestanden?
   Ich habe meinen Wagen nach Florida gefahren.
     (haben: condition 2. is not fulfilled, since Wagen is an accusative object),
         but
   Ich bin ihr nach Florida gefolgt.
     (sein, because folgen 'to follow' expressess a change of position; and condition b. is fulfilled, since ihr is a dative object).

Making the Past Participle (goes to the end of the clause!)

1. Prefix ge-

The past participle has the prefix ge- if the first syllable is stressed, so sagen > gesagt. Separable prefixes are stressed, but the ge- goes between the separable prefix and the stem):  anfangen > angefangen.

Consequently there is no ge- for verbs...

• with unstressed (inseparable) prefixes like ver- etc. (versagen > versagt, beenden > beendet
• ending in the stressed suffix -ieren: studieren > studiert.

Unstressed prefixes are: be-, emp-, ent-, er-, ge-, ver-, zer-; unter- and über- are stressed and separable in some words, but unstressed and inseparable in others (check your dictionary!).

2. Vowel Change and Ending

Regular ("weak") verbs retain the vowel of the infinitive and add the ending -t to the stem; this ending is expanded to -et when the stem ends in -d, -t, (geredet, gearbeitet and after -m or -n preceded by a consonant other than l or r: geregnet, geatmet, but gewarnt, gequalmt). 

Irregular ("strong") verbs
   a. often have a different vowel than the infinitive and present tense.  These patterns must be learned, but most most verbs follow one of a dozen or so patterns shown in the Verb Buddy Groups handout.
   b. end in -en: gefunden, getrunken, gegeben, getragen

By definition, verbs whose past participles end in -t are called "weak", and those with past participles in -en are called "strong". While most verbs are weak, many of the most common verbs are strong or irregular. A handful of weak verbs have vowel changes in the past participle: gebracht < bringen, gekannt < kennen, gewusst < wissen.

Study Tips

1. Find three or four verbs which demonstrate each of the principles above and make up sentences with them.

2. Learn the "irregular" verbs by groups which follow the same patterns. Analyzing similarities and differences will help you learn the forms as well. Verb Buddy Groups

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