How Do You Conjugate German Verbs In Imperfect Tense?
In German, the past can be expressed in perfect or imperfect tense. The perfect tense consists of two parts, the auxiliary and the past participle. The imperfect, however, only uses one verb form. While the perfect tense is used more in spoken dialogue, the imperfect tense is used in writing. The imperfect tense tends to appear in books, accounts, narrative writing and newspaper reports. “Ich brauchte Geld” (I needed money) is an example of imperfect tense. Here is how to conjugate German verbs in the imperfect tense. Learn the imperfect tense forms for weak verbs. Weak verbs are regular verbs in that the stems do not change. Form the imperfect tense by taking the stem and adding the appropriate ending. For example, take the verb sagen (to say). The stem is “sag.” The endings are –te, -test, -te, -ten, -tet and –ten. “Ich sage” (I said), “du sagtest” (you said), “er sagte” (he said), “wir sagten” (we said), “ihr sagtet” (you all said), “sie sagten” (they said), and “Sie sagten” (you sa
