Summary: The German Tenses | Learn All German Tenses Easily (2025)

let's summarize all of the tenses in German one more time as we already learned every language needs to include at least three tenses one past form one present form and one future form because in every language it needs to be possible to talk about the present to talk about the past and to talk about the future but that's only the bare minimum most languages have more than just three tenses and English even has 12 six past tenses two present tenses and four future tenses makes a total of 12 German only has half of that amount we have three past tenses the prum the perfect and the Plum Perfect one present tense the presents and two future tenses F and fut let's take a look at each of them we'll start with the present tense our presentence the presence is like the normal tense it's the most used tense in German and it's our equivalent of the simple present and present progressive in English some example sentences are for example is and film in order to form the presence we first need to get the root of the verb we do this by taking the infinitive which in German is characterized by the ending n n and all we need to do is leave out the ending so for example the root of the verb G to go is G and the root of the verb Lear to study is learn and also the root of the verb Shen is sha once we have the root all we need to do is add the present endings and they are uh for the first person singular St for the second person singular t for the third person singular n for the first person plural t for the second person plural and again for the third person plural so for example if we take the verb M to make we would conjugate it like this and so that's the presents our most used and probably also easiest tense up next we'll take a look at the past tenses in German farit for fit for here we have the pr the perfect and the plus perfect the prum is our equivalent of the simple past in English it's again formed by taking the root and then we don't add the present ending like in the presents but the pitum ending those endings are T Test T ten T and ten unlike the simple past in English we use the prum mostly in written language the other form that we use more often is the perfect it's mainly used in spoken language and it's the German equivalent of the present perfect and present perfect progressive in English it is formed by taking the HS verb or auxiliary verb Z or and then adding the part so or to be or to have in their conjugated versions so and plus the partip of the verb that you're actually using now if you're wondering what the partip was it's the German version of the past participle for example played made talked been and so on those are all examples for the particip in German examples would be for example Gan G and so on the regular particip forms are formed by taking the root of the verb and then adding g at the first front and T at the back but there are also some irregularities that we will take a look on in just a few seconds let's first focus on our final past tense the plusquam perfect the past perfect it is used for actions that happen even further in the past than something else no matter whether it's in Whitten language or in spoken language it is actually the least used past tense in German and we form it by using the pitum or simple past forms of Z and to be and to have so for example and in the case of Z to be and and in the case of har to have the rest is exactly the same as in the perfect we just add the partip which doesn't change so the pl perfect can basically be described as the prum of the perfect it's basically a mixture of these two tenses in order to make the difference clearer let's have a look at some example sentences for example I went in German would be is is the corresponding perfect form would be is is I have gone and the corresponding plus perfect form would be is I had gone is let's have another example this time this time we start with they w z Zan again this is a prum form a simple past form and the corresponding perfect form would be Z they have one zon they have one and the corresponding plus effect would be Z they had one Z got it so now let's have a look at the irregularities I already mentioned that all of these tenses have irregular forms and we can find them in the three forms of irregular verbs remember in the additional material you can find a table with all of these forms and they consist of the infinitive the first word which is for example common to come this one is not irregular but it shows you which verb it is then we have the second form in this case Cal came the prum form or simple past form is and in the prum we then use this form as our root so we would conjugate it like this is andon and the same goes for all of the other irregular verbs you just need to look for the second form and then you use it as your root the third form that we have is the partti in this case common G common this is probably the easiest because it doesn't need to be conjugated you just need to look it up in the table and then you have your particip so let's repeat that one more time if you have an irregular verb in the prum you just need to look for the second form of the three forms of irregular verbs and if you have an irregular verb in the perfect or plus perfect you look for the third form the partip everything else stays the same the past tenses are probably the hardest part of German now let's move on to a more easier part the only kind of tenses that we now have left are the future tenses or Ts for in German TS foran here we have the futu future one fut and the futv Future 2 the fut is used in almost all cases and it's the German version of the will future going to Future and Future Progressive the Futo on the other hand is only used in about 1% of all cases and it's used to talk about things that will be over at some point in the future for example we will have seen you see this is something that is pretty rarely used but this shows you how important the Futo is because we use it in almost 99% of all cases when we talk about the future the Futo is formed by taking the conjugated version of of the verb verden to become V and then you add the infinitive of the original verb for example VI Z we will see VI Z so it's basically really really close to the will future in English with the slight difference that verden needs to be conjugated so basically in the future all you need is this simple form not for like in English the other one the fut is also nice to know but it's not that important but to make this a complete course about the the tenses let's look at its formation as well unfortunately the futoi is much more complicated than the Futo is also formed by taking the conjugated version of the verb verden to become but then we don't add the infinitive we move on with the partti remember the partti is formed by taking the root of the verb and then adding g at the front and T at the back but it can also be irregular and in that case it's the third form of our forms of irregular verbs but that's still not it when we have the partip we still have to add Z or har luckily only they infinitive so we don't need to conjugate them in most cases we use har but if we have a verb that involves some form of movement or action we use Z for example we will have seen here we have the conjugated version of the verb to become in this case we become the of Z to C which is gazen Gaz and then Hab the infinitive of Hab to have good and that's it those are all tenses in German three past tenses one present tense and two future tenses if you made it until this point then congrats but your journey doesn't need to be over what are some possible next steps that's the topic of our next video bis GL see you soon