The Perfekt with sein

The Perfekt with sein

When to use the Perfekt with sein

While using the German Perfekt is a lot easier than the English Present Perfect – you simply always use it when you talk about the past.

It comes in two variants:  In German you will at times have to use ‘sein’ instead of ‘haben’ as the auxiliary verb.

This phenomenon occurs with both regular and irregular verbs. There are not many helpful rules. So, please make sure you read the following paragraphs attentively:

You have to use ‘sein’ in the Perfekt for:

• Verbs that are used to express a movement from a point A to a point B, like e.g. fahren > to drive
• Verbs that state a change of state, like e.g. einschlafen > to fall asleep

It might be easier to just learn the top 15 of those verbs by heart and to add the more rare verbs later on when they cross your path. I suggest the following verbs until B1 or even later. The titles are my personal suggestions to group these:

Movements from a point A to point B

gehen to go

fahren to drive / to ride

laufen to walk

fliegen to fly

steigen to mount

kommen to com

fallen to fall

umziehen to move house

Everything around (!) sleeping

einschlafen to fall asleep

aufstehen to get up

aufwachen to wake up

BUT: Ich habe gut geschlafen.

Verbs of existence

sein to be

bleiben to remain / to stay

wachsen to grow

werden to become

If I just told you to learn these by heart, I wouldn’t deserve to call my little undertaking smarterGerman. The most efficient way to learn these is to make use of a little memory-technique. As the question here is to be or not to be my first association is that of Hamlet, the Danish prince, that Shakespeare has written about. Search for Hamlet in the internet so that you’ll have a better idea of him.

Now, Hamlet will represent the verb ‘sein’ . All you need to do is to associate him with those 15 verbs above. You could create little stories of 3-5 verbs like this one:

Hamlet wakes up every morning at 5am. He always falls asleep again but after another 30mins he finally manages to get up. Today is his lazy day. He decides not to go to work, that throne is so uncomfortable. He stays at home. He will grow a beard. His beard grows 30cm in one day.

Simply imagine this little story as vividly as you can. Add sounds, smell, lights and colors to it. Imagine that you are invisible and unhearable and are there in the same room with Hamlet. Feel the temperature. The structure of his clothes. Touch his beard. He won’t feel it but your brain will. Like this you will remember the story or what is more important: the keywords much better. Now go and make your own stories with the remaining 10 verbs and you will have mastered the verbs with ‘sein’ in Perfekt.