The Perfect II (strong verbs and verbs that take sein as auxiliary verb)

I. Recap

The German present perfect tense contains two components: an auxiliary verb and a past participle. This tense is used frequently in conversation. In English, the present perfect translates to a variety of meanings:

Ich habe gesehen. I saw, I was seeing, I have seen, I did see.

II. Strong verbs

“Strong” verbs are simply verbs that do not take a -t on their stem, but rather an -n or -en. It is also common for these verbs to have a vowel change in the past participle. The irregularities of these should be noted as a large amount of them are verbs used on a daily basis.

kommen Wir sind nach Hause gekommen. We came home. lesen Ihr *habt den Roman gelesen. You read the novel. schreiben Hast du den Brief *geschrieben? Did you write the letter? ** Here, we see that the stem vowel cluster changes from ei to ie in the past perfect.

Some frequently seen strong verbs:

finden - haben gefunden nehmen- haben genommen essen- haben gegessen trinken- haben getrunken

III. Sein as an auxiliary verb

Not all verbs take haben as their auxiliary verb. Most of these verbs that use sein are intransitive and thus lack a direct object. Below we see different categories of verbs that take sein as their auxiliary. Sein is seen with both strong and weak verbs.

A. Change of state and being: the following verbs always take sein (sterben, bleiben)

werden Ich bin krank geworden. I got sick. sein Ich bin nur einmal in Österreich gewesen. I have only been to Austria once.

B. Events and occurrences: These verbs always take sein: (passieren, gelingen, erscheinen).

geschehen Was ist mit ihr geschehen? What happened to her? begegnen Wir sind uns im Supermarkt begegnet. We ran into one another at the supermarket.

C. Motion Verbs: Most motion verbs take sein as their auxiliary verb.

*Sind Sie in die Altstadt gegangen? Did you go into the old city? * Gehen always takes sein. Wir sind zum Strand gefahren. We drove to the beach. Ich bin letztes Jahr zum See gewandert. Last year, I hiked to the lake.

Here, we see examples of verbs of motion taking haben because they are used transitively:

Wir haben das Auto meines Onkels gefahren. We drove my uncle’s car. Gestern habe ich mein Pferd geritten. Yesterday, I rode my horse.