Present perfect

Revision: present perfect

Ich habe gestern Fußball gespielt.

In spoken language, we often use the present perfect tense to talk about something that happened in the past.

The present perfect is formed from two parts:

a) In second position in the sentence is a simple clause with the auxiliary verb haben or sein. It is conjugated as in the present tense.

b) The activity described in the sentence is expressed using the second verb at the end of the sentence. This verb is in a special form, the past participle. Most past participles start with the prefix ge-. The past participle in the present perfect tense is an infinitive form, meaning it is not conjugated.

 

Grammatical terms in German:

das Perfekt: The present perfect is a verb tense that expresses an event in the past. It is formed using the conjugated form of the auxiliary verb (haben or sein) and the past participle.