Forms of the Simple Past

How is the the simple past tense formed?

First, let's review how the simple past of the auxiliaries is formed. You add a set of endings on a particular stem that is an important "part" of the verb (one you have to learn!) There is no ending in the first and third person singular.

Past tense of haben, sein, and the modal verbs

haben	sein	können	müssen	dürfen	sollen	wollen
ich hatte	ich war	ich konnte	ich musste	ich durfte	ich sollte	ich wollte
du hattest	du warst	du konntest	du musstest	du durftest	du solltest	du wolltest
er, sie, es hatte	er, sie, es war	er, sie, es konnte	er, sie, es musste	er, sie, es durfte	er, sie, es sollte	er, sie, es wollte
wir hatten	wir waren	wir konnten	wir mussten	wir durften	wir sollten	wir wollten
ihr hattet	ihr wart	ihr konntet	ihr musstet	ihr durftet	ihr solltet	ihr wolltet
sie hatten	sie waren	sie konnten	sie mussten	sie durften	sie sollten	sie wollten

Remember that the German language has both strong and weak verbs! The modals form the past tense like the weak verbs even when they change their stem vowel from ö to plain o and from ü to plain u. Those are exceptions, so let's learn some rules.

We begin with the weak verbs because they seem to be more 'regular'.

In English, a weak or regular verb adds -ed as the "sign of the past tense", for example: answer, answered. German weak verbs are a bit more complicated; they add the personal ending after a  -te or -ete which is the "sign of the past tense." Let's take as example the past tense of the weak verb wohnen:

 

Weak verbs whose stem ends in -t or -d insert an -e between the stem and the -t of the past tense:

Past tense of weak verbs ending in t/d: baden and arbeiten

German strong verbs, like English strong verbs, change the stem vowel to form the stem to which the past tense endings are added: run, ran; sing, sang; fall, fell; come, came. As in English, these vowel-change patterns are very old and will seem very irregular. Also, most of the verbs that have kept these old forms are verbs that are used a lot, in both languages. When they begin to seem natural to you, you will know you are really learning German!

Of course, German strong verbs not only change the stem but also add endings.

Let's look at an example:

We learned that geb-en (= to give) is a strong verb whose past participle is ge-geb-en. In the past tense, the stem vowel of geb-en changes to a: gab.

Past tense of a strong verb: geben

You have to learn the past stem (the first or third person singular) of each strong verb as you already learned its past participle.

Here are some examples:

Past tense of strong verbs: examples

Infinitive	fangen	ziehen	nehmen	fahren
(Sing)
ich	fing	zog	nahm	fuhr
du	fingst	zogst	nahmst	fuhrst
er, sie, es	fing	zog	nahm	fuhr
(Plur)
wir	fingen	zogen	nahmen	fuhren
ihr	fingt	zogt	nahmt	fuhrt
sie	fingen	zogen	nahmen	fuhren

Strong and weak verbs with a separable prefix separate the prefix in the past tense as they do in the present tense and the imperative.