Perfect Tense

The Perfekt (perfect tense) is often used in spoken and non-formal written language instead of the past tense. In English, we would use the simple past tense in place of it.

Perfect Tense: Usage

Rule 1: We use the perfect tense in spoken and informal speech when talking about an action that was completed in the past, when we want to focus on the result:

Note: when a specific point in the past is mentioned, we always use the perfect tense.

Rule 2: We never use the perfect tense with modal verbs (können, müssen, etc).

Perfect Tense: Conjugation

Rule 3: To form the present perfect tense in German, we need two parts:

- an auxiliary verbs haben (have) or sein (to be) in the present tense, which is placed in the second position of a sentence.

- and the Partizip II (past participle) of the main verb, which is placed at the end of a sentence.

Sein or Haben?

Rule 4: To form the Perfekt we use an auxiliary verb. We use sein (to be):

- If there is a change of place in the sentence

- If the subject changes its state

- with the verbs "sein", "werden" and "bleiben"

Rule 5: The perfect tense with haben (to have) is used with all verbs that do not use sein. It's best to simply learn the rules for using sein above and for the rest of the situations, use haben.