PRÄTERITUM: the easiest way to form the simple past tense in Deutsch

The simple past tense in German is called Präteritum. This is just one of the forms of making expressions and references in the past. Präteritum is mostly used in writing of articles such as novels, newspapers, magazines etc. it can sometimes be used in spoken German but not by many. This form of past tense unlike the perfect or past participle tense does not make use of auxiliary verbs. The various verbs are simply conjugated in the Präteritum forms in the second position to the subject of that sentence in the standard SVO order.

It is considered inappropriate to use both Präteritum (simple past tense) and Perfect tense (past participle tense) in one sentence. Nevertheless, it is only possible to combine the Präteritum and perfect tense of the auxiliary verbs -haben and sein- in one sentence. The Präteritum of the various categories of verbs are shown below.

**Note that in English, the simple past form of the auxiliary verb “do” can also be used to make the simple past tense. In such instances, the present form of the main verb is used. Regardless, it is still the Präteritum in German. For example; “I did buy a new house” means the same as “I bought a new house”.

Präteritum of Hilfsverben

The Präteritum of the auxiliary verbs are a bit irregular but easy to learn and memorize. Study the pictures below…

Usage;

• I was at home last night.—— ich war letzte Nacht zu Hause.
• He would go home soon.—— er wurde bald nach Hause gehen.
• Why didn’t you?—— warum tatest du nicht?
• We had our breakfast already.—— wir hatten schon unser Frühstück.

Regelmäßige Verben

To derive the Präteritum of weak verbs can be done in one of two ways;

1. Cut off the prefix “ge-” from the perfect form of that verb and then attach the declension suffix from the table below to the rest of the stem.
2. Conjugate the verb in its present tense to the third person subject (er/sie/es) and then add the declension suffix from the picture below.

For Example: arbeiten

Unregelmäßige Verben

The Präteritum of strong verbs is irregular just like their perfect tense. They all have stem vowel changes that are completely different from their present tense. Unlike weak verbs, they are not first conjugated to the third person subject but instead the verb ending “en” is lost and the stem vowel and/or even some stem consonants are replaced with that of the Präteritum. The stem changes that take place in the Präteritum are shown below.

**Note that the above stem-vowel changes are due to the position of the “stress” on the word.

Examples;

After making the necessary changes in the stem, the conjugating suffixes are then added to the various subjects as shown below:

Observe that the declension at du is an “e” in bracket. This indicates that it can sometimes be used with or without the “e”. When the stem ends with either “t, d, s or z”, “est” is used but when it involves any other stem ending, “st” is used instead. See illustration below.

Usage:

• They bade 50 percent.—— sie boten 50 Prozent.
• He closed the door.—— er schloss die Tür.
• John helped the old woman.—— John half der alten Frau.
• You ate two plates of rice.—— du aßest zwei Teller Reis.

Gemischte Verben

Mixed verbs form their Präteritum partly like weak verbs in that they are first conjugated to the third person and then like strong verbs by changing the various stem vowels to “-a” before the declension suffix from the weak verb table for Präteritum above is added or better still, cut off the prefix “-ge” from the perfect tense and add the respective conjunction vowels for perfect tense at the end of the stem.

*Note that all mixed verbs follow this pattern except “wissen” whose stem vowel changes to “-u” instead. See below…

Usage:

• I knew it!—— ich wusste es!
• She burnt her hand.—— sie brannte ihre Hand.
• They brought some Oranges.—— sie brachten etwas Orangen.
• You knew the man, why didn’t you say so earlier? Du kanntest den Mann, warum sagtest du es nicht früher?

Trennbare Verben

The Präteritum of these verbs are of the three listed above. They are formed based on the category of the root verb which can either be weak, strong or mixed and without the prefix “-ge”. While these verbs are being conjugated to the subject in the Präteritum, the prefixes but first be cut out and then taken to the end of the sentence after everything else has been written. See examples below.

Usage:

• The woman brought her children along.—— die Frau brachte ihre Kinder mit.
• Anna did not tidy up the room.—— Anna räumte das Zimmer nicht auf.
• You (people) came back yesterday.—— ihr kamt gestern zurück.

Untrennbare Verben

Since these verbs can’t be separated from their prefixes, the Präteritum is formed with them attached to the prefixes. They procedure is quite similar to the separable verb in that those with weak root verbs are converted to Präteritum like weak verbs and likewise the strong and mixed verbs. See examples below.

Usage:

• My aunt promised to buy toys for us.—— meine Tante versprach, uns Spielzeugen zu kaufen.
• Sandra lost her cellphone last week at the central train station.—— Sandra verlor letzte Woche am Hauptbahnhof ihr Handy.
• I just signed the two-year contract.—— ich unterschrieb gerade den Zweijahresvertrag.

Modal verbs

To derive the Präteritum of modal verbs, every umlaut is first replaced with the non-umlaut form of that letter and then the verb end “-en” is replaced with “-t” before the declension suffix is added to the various subjects during conjugation except “mögen” whose stem-end rather changes to “-ch”. See the description below…

*Note that the declension suffix from weak verb above should be used.

Usage;

• Unfortunately I couldn’t travel to France anymore.—— leider, konnte ich nicht mehr nach Frankreich reisen.
• We were not allowed to go out.—— wir durften nicht raus(gehen).
• You were not supposed to call me.—— du solltest mich nicht anrufen.
• She liked to sing.—— sie mochte singen.