A tense is a grammatical term and it refers to when something occurs. Since verbs describe what occurs the tense illustrates when and how the verb 'takes place'.
The following examples show four different tenses for the verb 'choose':
I choose
I am choosing
I have been chosen
Each of the above occurs now (in the present), but they describe different types of occurrence in the present.
To describe this Tenses need to address the basic issue of time - did the event occur in the past, present or future - and what kind of event is it - did it occur right at that moment, is it in the process of happening, or is it always in this state?
To learn basic German you need to know some basic tenses since they effect how verbs are used. Learning the tenses is a matter of knowing how they are categorised and then learning the rules for how verbs work in that category.
The most necessary categories of tenses to learn are Present Simple and Present Perfect. Its important when learning these that you don't get too hung up on how the categories are named since the titles don't always make sense. For example, the Present Perfect is actually used to talk about the past. Just accept what they are called and learn how they effect verbs.
The present simple tense (sometimes just called the present simple) is used a lot in German and is a kind of 'universal' tense. It is probably the tense you are already most familiar with and you probably already know how verbs change (conjugate) correctly in the present simple.
It applies to a vast number of situations including:
The verbs change when used in this tense but they work in the way that you have probably learned already. The stem of the verb remains the same but the ending is changed (for regular verbs) depending on the personal pronoun used:
singular:
ich = -e
du = -st (informal you)
er, sie, es = -t
sie = -t (their)
plural:
wir = -en
ihr = -t (informal you)
sie = -en (their)
Sie = -en (formal you)
Irregular verbs will change either the stem or a vowel in the stem in du, er, es, sie (her), and sie (their) forms only. How this changes needs to be learned for each irregular verb.
Present Perfect is used to talk about the past using 'to be' (sein) and 'to have' (haben). For example:
Er hat in Berlin gewohnt - He lived in Berlin
Wir sind ins Kino gegangen - We went to the movies
There are two things to remember:
Point one is easy! Point two is a little trickier. For regular verbs the second verb has a ge added to the beginning (as in the example above), and a t added to the end of the stem.
gewohnt
gebringt
gesagt
However, if it is an irregular verb the rules vary and need to be learned. For example, even though machen is an irregular verb it is conjugated the same way as a regular verb in the Present Perfect (gemacht), however most irregular verbs put ge at the beginning and en at the end.
gebleiben
gegeben
gelesen
One other thing you have to know is when (with which verbs) to use haben and when to use sein when talking about the past. As it happens in most cases you use haben. You use sein with:
There has been error in communication with booki server. Not sure right now where is the problem.
You should refresh this page.