Präteritum forms

The Präteritum can be associated with the Past Simple tense of the English language. However there are some differences. The proper usage of verbal tenses in the German language will be thoroughly analyzed in a later article.

Weak verbs

The stem receives the following endings:

-te : ich sagte	-ten : wir sagten
-test : du sagtest	-tet : ihr sagtet
-te : er/sie/es sagte	-ten : Sie/sie sagten

An observation should be made here about the case in which the stem of the verb ends in -t, -d, or in -m, -n when another consonant (except r or l) precedes this last letter. In this case an -e- is insert, as the example below illustrates.

ich antwort-e-te, du bad-e-test, er atm-e-te, wir rechn-e-te etc.

Strong verbs

Strong verb change their stem at this tense(Präteritum) and receive the following endings:

	kommen	fahren	gehen
-	ich kam	ich fuhr	ich ging
-st	du kamst	du fuhrst	du gingst
-	er kam	er fuhr	er ging
-en	wir kamen	wir fuhren	wir gingen
-t	ihr kamt	ihr fuhrt	ihr gingt
-en	sie kamen	sie fuhren	sie gingen

There are certain patterns in the vowel changes which will be presented in a later article, however, the best way to learn them is by reading and actually using the language, by gaining as much exposure to it as possible.