Getting into time – Zeitformen

I was dreading the fact that I have to write a blog article, something I haven’t done before, but now that I’ve typed the first few words, I already feel confident enough to share everything I have on my mind!

As Abhiraj says, it’s okay to make mistakes, but very important for us to learn from them. “Jab tak paani mein nahi khudenge, tairne kaise seekhenge” – My version of the same 🙂

So here I am, writing my first blog article!

Today, we started with Zeitformen, or rather, continued with what we had done on Day 2 of our course. “Verbflexion”.

Here’s a brief recap of the topic as a chart:

Zeitform:(Wann?)-> Past .——— Present.——–Future

Vergangenheit. Gegenwart Zukunft

Zukunft-zukommen (time is coming)

To explain this with an example:

next minute, next month, next year, next decade etc-we use present

Wie sieht die Welt im zehn Jahren aus?

I think this sentence explains it all.

So we continue the Zeitformen from here. Today we discussed Pråteritum in

detail. Let me explain with a flow chart again.

Zeitformen

Füher__________________Jetzt____________Spåter_______>zeit

e.Vergangenheit. e.Gegenwart. e.Zukunft

s.Pråteritum

s.Perfect.

(s.Partizipperfekt)

So now we have filled up the spaces that was left blank in the Verbflexion

chart on day 2.

Now lets see what is the difference between Pråteritum and Perfect.

Well Pråteritum is used in written narratives or reports of past events

eg. essays, literary texts, newspaper texts or reports.

eg. Aus den Berlin Zoo brach gestern ein Löwe aus.

So here the Verb is ausbrechen and Präteritum is brach aus. -to escape

Perfekt is always used in our conversations ,that is while speaking.

eg. Ich habe meine Hausaufgabe gemacht.

Here we conjugate the verb haben and use machen in Partizip II.

Lets see how the verbs are conjugated in Präteritum form.

Das Präteritum

Konjugation: 1 st person = 3 rd person

*Always learn the Konjugation for 3rd person.

Sein: er war. -3rd person

haben-er hatte -3rd person

Sein	haben
Ich war	Ich hatte
du warst	du hattest
er/es/sie war	er/es/sie hatte
wir waren	wir hatten
ihr wart	ihr hattet
sie/Sie waren	sie/Sie hatten

this was conjugation for sein and haben.

The Prätisteady seven

We decided upon this name as they are the seven important verbs which are

used very often.

We have already seen

sein

haben

Modal Verben

können	er konnte
müssen	er musste
dürfen	er durfte
wollen	er wollte
sollen	er sollte

Fausregel (thumb rule) is that , we use the Präteritum form.

Präteritum for Schwache Verben or weak verbs

↓

REGELMÄSSIG

↓

REGEL : STAMM + “te”

VERB	STAMM	+te
Machen	Mach	Machte
Wohnen	Wohn	Wohnte
hören	hör	hörte
Suchen	Such	Suchte
Kaufen	Kauf	Kaufte

(Note: why have we used ss in REGELMÄSSIG? β cannot be written in capital.

Actung !

Möchten has no Präteritum form.

We use the verb wallen so it is er wollte.

STARKE VERBEN

↓

UNREGELMÄSSIG

↓

No Rule !!!

There are no rules for strong or UNREGELMÄSSIG Verben for the Präteritum form.

er

sehen	sah
lesen	las
geben	gab
kommen	kam
schreiben	schrieb

Some verb UNREGELMÄSSIG verbs are

er

Fahren	Fuhr
Schlafen	Schlief
Laden	Lud
Halten	Hielt
Bieten	Bot
Essen	aβ
Fangen	Fing
Verlieren	Verlor

In the end I want to say that Präteritum is important to learn but not important to converse in the lower levels of learning the German language. But Präteritum is used for the other forms of grammar like Konjuktive II, which is used in day to day conversations. Like Abhiraj gave an excellent example of Dharmendra’s dialogue for the film Sholay.

” Agar meri mauri hoti. Agar mere papa hote.

eg: Ich wäre gern Reich. Dann würde ich ein Mercedes Kaufen.

Another interesting thing that Abhiraj said is that to lern the tenses we do not need to keep writing or practising, we just need to pay attention while we are using the tenses. So I have come to the end of my blog and waiting for Friday to start with the perfect zeitform, which is very important and we need to master it.

Thank You.

Mandakini Nair