|
|
| ||||||
|
|
| ||||
The simple past is used for actions in the past
that were finished. Keywords for the past progressive can be yesterday, last
year, in 1999 a.s.o.
Notice that the simple past is a tense which is used in everyday conversation. The German grammatical equivalent, the Präteritum or Imperfekt is predominately used in and for written language.
The German equivalent in spoken language is the Perfekt.
You do not hear a sentence
like: Gestern lief ich durch den Park whereas Gestern bin ich durch
den Park gelaufen is quite ok. A translation could be…..
Yesterday I ran through the park.
Vor 20 Jahren habe ich in Newcastle gelebt. wird zu
20 years ago he lived in Newcastle.
Forms:
For the simple past of the so called regular verbs you
need the infinitive and ad an –ed. I talked to her yesterday.
A y gets an I, so carry becomes
carried
If you have a short, stressed vowel and a consonant at
the end of a word, the consonant is doubled, drop becomes dropped,
hop becomes hopped
I
started
ich startete
/ fing an
you
started
du startetest /
fingst an
he, she, it
started
er, sie es
startete / fing an
we started
wir starteten / fingen an
you
started
ihr starteten / fingt
an
they started
sie starteten / fingen an
And you have the famous ….can you hear the drums ?…..
irregular verbs and for the simple past you need the second form.
to begin, began, begun
beginnen, anfangen
to see, saw,
seen
sehen
The different forms go as follows :
I saw
ich sah
you saw
du sahst
he, she, it saw
er, sie es sah
we saw
wir sahen
you saw
ihr saht
they saw
sie sahen
For
questions and negations you simply need a “did” or “did not” in a
similar way like the simple present:
Did you go there, too ?
Did she work there ?
Why did we go there?
Hey Jake, what did you do ?
What did he work at ?
I did not go!
He did not live in this street.
I didn’t know that.
You didn’t walk on water !
She doesn’t smoke at work.
You can see, that for the negations “did not”
the short form didn’t is used.