The regular Präteritum

The regular Präteritum

The Präteritum is the one of three past forms in German. Most of the German verbs are regular although a few very important ones are irregular. The irregular ones will be covered separately.

How to build the regular Präteritum

Take a look at the following example:

Du mach.te.st deine Hausaufgaben. 

You‘ve done your homework.

I have segregated the verb ‘machtest’ into three pieces:

To summarize: Simply take the stem of the verb‘s infinitive form and put a -te- between the stem and the personal ending.

A few more examples:

Some forms are a bit different:

– The stem of arbeiten ends in a –t that‘s why you have to add an –e-. But you already know this procedure from the present tense.

– Separable verbs (=ein.kaufen) remain separable.

The complete set of personal endings

The verb machen in all forms of the Präteritum:

Please note that the ‘ich’ and the ‘es’ forms do not have a personal ending. That also matters for the irregular Präteritum later.