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The spoken past
For everyday past events, use the Perfekt: a conjugated helper in position two and a past participle at the end. Most verbs use haben. Movement between places and changes of state often use sein. Learn the helper and participle together: arbeiten → hat gearbeitet; gehen → ist gegangen.
Who → haben / sein → rest → past participle
Ich habe gestern gearbeitet.
I worked yesterday.
Ich bin nach Hause gegangen.
I went home.
Source & sentence patterns
deutsch.info · the perfect tense
- Verb position
- Who → verb → rest
- Time first
- Time → verb → who → rest
- Modal verbs
- Who → modal → rest → infinitive
- Separable verbs
- Who → verb stem → rest → prefix
- Sentence brackets
- First element → conjugated verb → middle → final verb part
- The spoken past
- Who → haben / sein → rest → past participle