Perfekt, or: Sharon's notes, Verby things, part two.

I am preparing for a German exam.  You have been warned.

In my former post, Theophilus, I suggested the Perfekt (or perfect tense of verbs) was tricksier than the Plusquamperfekt (or pluperfect tense).

This isn't strictly true.

The fact of the matter is, the rules for making the perfect and the pluperfect in German are pretty dang similar.  The only real difference is the tense of the auxiliary verb.

In the Plusquamperfekt we had two parts of the verb:  the auxiliary, which was the simple past tense of haben or sein, and the past participle of the main verb.

In the Perfekt, we have two parts of the verb:  the auxiliary, which is the present tense of haben or sein, and the past participle of the main verb.

Plusquamperfekt:  "Ich hatte den Hund gekauft."
Perfekt: "Ich habe den Hund gekauft."

And all the stuff about verby rules in German that applied to the Plusquamperfekt also apply to the Perfekt:

• The auxiliary verb takes the position of the conjugated verb (second spot in a standard clause, or kicked to the end of the clause in a dependent clause), and cops all of the conjugation, while the past participle sits at the end of the clause and looks pretty.
• Haben is used for most verbs, but sein is used for verbs indicating motion towards/away from something or a change of state.

So really, when it comes to making the Perfekt, it's no more complicated than the Plusquamperfekt - you just need to know the past participle of the verb and you're sweet.

It's where and how you use the Perfekt that's a bit tricksy for English speakers.

In English, the perfect tense is made by... well, it's made by combining the present tense form of "have" with the past participle of the main verb:  "I have eaten."  Yes, that's pretty much what happens in German, but without much use for the "to be" verb (while they use it frequently).

English speakers use it to indicate something that happened in past - finished, done, dusted - that is relevant to what's happening now.  If you say "I have eaten", it's probably because someone just asked you if you wanted something to eat, and you are telling them that, in your world, at present, the eating thing has been resolved.

So it's a continuum thing (timey-wimey stuff).  If the thing that is over and resolved is relevant to something happening in the present, you use the perfect tense.  If it is relevant to events that are also in the past, you use the pluperfect.

"I have eaten, but if you want to grab a cup of coffee I'll come with you." (perfect)
"I had eaten when Tom and Jack turned up at my house with a pizza." (pluperfect)

If you pay close attention, you may notice that the perfect tense occurs more often in "real-time" communication (like live conversations and email exchanges), while the pluperfect occurs more often in written communication and narratives.

When do we say "I ate"?  Well, mostly when answering questions or narrating events in the past without particular reference to how far in the past those events occurred in relation to other events.

"I ate the spaghetti."

This is the simple past tense - simple in construction, but also in terms of the time-space continuum.  It's just something that happened.

The simple past tense indicates the information is simply pertinent in and off itself, while the perfect and the pluperfect tense indicate the information pertains to other information.

If someone said "I at the spaghetti", we would be content to leave it at that, but if they said "I have eaten the spaghetti", we might feel compelled to ask "so?"

So, getting back to German.

In German, we use the Perfekt to cover both things that simply happened in the past as well as things that still have some baring on the current point in the continuum.  Actually, it even covers the progressive form (things that started in the past and haven't finished yet), which is the really tricksy bit.

So where we would notice a marked difference between saying "I ate the spaghetti", "I have eaten the spaghetti" and "I have been eating the spaghetti", in German - not so much.

"Ich aß die Spaghetti" and "ich habe die Spaghetti gegessen" are (so I have been told) much of a muchness.  Describing the exact same events (in the exact same point of the space-time continuum) you would be more likely to use the Präteritum (simple past tense/preterite) in written German and the Perfekt in spoken conversation.

They say that, in spoken German, you are also more likely to use the Perfekt than the Plusquamperfekt.

So, when talking to your peeps, you'll probably say "Ich habe die Spaghetti gegessen" - which could mean:

• you have eaten the spaghetti (so the spaghetti is all gone, now), 
• you have been eating the spaghetti (so the spaghetti stocks are decidedly lower), 
• you had eaten the spaghetti (earlier today, just before some other stuff happened) or 
• you ate the spaghetti ("but my sister had the pizza - why do you ask?")

Which makes the Perfekt the hardest working tense in spoken German, I'd say.

But, since you are more likely to hear people using the Perfekt as they chat on the street, but more likely to use the Präteritum or Plusquamperfekt in written German, that means you have to pay close attention for your exams and assignments.

Are you writing dialogue?  Use the Perfekt a lot.

Are you writing narrative?  Use the Präteritum and the Plusquamperfekt (unless, of course, you want to say something that actually requires the Perfekt:  "Er hat die Spaghetti gegessen, und will keine Pizza").