Tenses

TENSES

Present tense is formed by conjugating the verb in relation to the sentence's subject. e.g. Ich spiele Tennis. Ich fahre nach Paris.

PAST TENSES

• Perfect- used for actions that have been completed in the recent past. Mostly used in talking. Formed by using the past participle of a verb with either haben or sein. Ich habe Tennis gespielt. Ich bin nach Paris gefahren

• Imperfect- used to talk about events in the past, which are not linked to the present (i.e. childhood), things you did but no longer do. Mostly used in written German. Used by conjugating the verb in its imperfect form. e.g. Ich spielte Tennis, Ich fuhr nach Paris

• Pluperfect- used to talk about events that took place before a different past event. Use the imperfect of haben and sein as well as the past participle of the verb. e.g. Ich hatte Tennis gespielt (I had played tennis), Ich war nach Paris gefahren

Future tense

Used for an action that will occur in the future- formed using werden and the infinitive

e.g. Ich werde Tennis spielen, Ich werde nach Paris fahren.