Perfect Tense — haben vs sein and Past Participles

The perfect tense (das Perfekt) is the most common way to talk about the past in spoken and written German. It is essential for GCSE German. This lesson covers how to form the perfect tense, when to use haben vs sein, regular and irregular past participles, and separable verbs in the perfect tense.

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1. Formation

The perfect tense uses two parts:

haben or sein (conjugated) + past participle (at the end)

German	English
Ich habe Fußball gespielt.	I played football.
Ich bin nach Berlin gefahren.	I went to Berlin.

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2. Regular Past Participles (Schwache Verben)

For regular (weak) verbs, the past participle follows this pattern:

ge- + stem + -t

Infinitive	Past Participle	English
spielen	gespielt	played
machen	gemacht	done/made
kaufen	gekauft	bought
lernen	gelernt	learned
hören	gehört	heard
wohnen	gewohnt	lived
kochen	gekocht	cooked
sagen	gesagt	said