Präteritum — the written past

Also called Imperfekt or simple past. It's the tense German uses for narrative writing: books, newspaper articles, fairy tales. In speech, most people use Perfekt instead — but there's a short list of verbs whose Präteritum you WILL use every day.

Start with the verbs you need orally

These five get used in Präteritum even in casual conversation. Learn them first, and you're already functional.

One thing to lock in: ich- and er-forms are identical, with no -e or -t ending. That's true across Präteritum for irregular verbs and modals.

Regular Präteritum (weak verbs)

Take the stem. Add -te-. Add the normal personal ending.

Strong Präteritum

Same verbs that had strange participles have strange Präteritums. The stem vowel changes; the endings are stripped (no -te).

The endings:

Notice: ich- and er-forms are identical with no ending in strong Präteritum.

Mixed verbs in Präteritum

Same crew as the participle mixed verbs — stem changes AND -te endings.

When to use Präteritum vs. Perfekt

Both describe past events. The register is what differs.

Speakers use Präteritum orally for the five above (sein, haben, werden and the modals), plus a few fixed expressions. Everything else in speech defaults to Perfekt. In North German dialects, you'll hear more Präteritum in speech; in the South, almost none.

Worked example

A tiny fairy-tale paragraph:

Es war einmal ein Mädchen. Sie hatte einen roten Mantel und wohnte mit ihrer Mutter im Wald. Eines Tages ging sie zu ihrer Großmutter. Im Wald traf sie einen Wolf. Once upon a time there was a girl. She had a red coat and lived with her mother in the forest. One day she went to her grandmother's. In the forest she met a wolf.

Notice: every verb in Präteritum. This is standard narrative German. You wouldn't write this in Perfekt unless you wanted to sound like you were telling a friend about your day.

Common mistakes, named

1. Adding a -t ending on er-forms of modals. Er konnte → er konntet. ❌ → er konnte. ✓ Er- and ich- forms share the same ending — nothing extra.

2. Using Präteritum in normal conversation. Ich ging ins Kino in casual speech sounds bookish. Say Ich bin ins Kino gegangen instead.

3. Using Perfekt for sein/haben/modals in storytelling or writing. Es hat einmal einen König gegeben is grammatically fine but reads as colloquial; written narrative wants Es war einmal ein König.

4. Forgetting ich war and ich hatte. These two are the most-used Präteritums in the language — don't let Perfekt muscle them out.

Mini check

Where this leads

Separable verbs have been sneaking into your sentences already (aufstehen, aufmachen, anrufen). Time to meet them head-on, understand how they behave across tenses, and notice the dozen prefixes that matter most.

Next up: Trennbare Verben — separable verbs.

Test yourself