German has two past tenses, which we are calling "Perfekt" and "Präteritum" in this course, and there are no differences in meaning between them.  The difference is simply that "Perfekt" (the two-word-past-tense) is used in informal contexts (speaking and informal writing), and "Präteritum" (the one-word-past tense) is used in more formal writing and speaking.

Students often wonder why the two-word form, which seems more complicated, would be informal, while the seemingly simpler one-word form is formal.  It turns out that formal language is actually very often much simpler than informal language: as one example, think how much harder it would be to teach someone everything involved in saying "I ain't gonna learn no &*%#@ Präteritum" and saying "I will not learn the Präteritum."

When to use the Präteritum in speaking

For the modal verbs, the reason for this is that to form the perfect tense with a modal verb, one actually needs a double infinitive construction, which sounds awkward in speaking: it is much simpler to say "Ich musste Kenny töten" than "Ich habe Kenny töten müssen." [I realize this contradicts the argument I just made above about informal language generally being more complicated than formal language... :( ]

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Perfekt [Perfect Tense]

If in doubt, use "haben."  "Sein" is used if

• the verb describes motion (e.g. running, jumping, skipping, but not e.g. writing or nodding one's head, which do involve motion, but are not primarily "about" that motion) or a change of location (e.g. travelling or moving from one house to another [umziehen])
• the verb describes a change of state (e.g. waking up or falling asleep, but not sleeping itself, which is a constant state)

In addition, even if the verb describes motion, "sein" is not used if the verb has an accusative object (e.g. "Ich bin gefahren," but "Ich habe das Auto gefahren").

Exceptions

The verbs "sein," "bleiben" [=to stay], "passieren" [=to happen], "geschehen" [=to happen] and "gelingen" [=to succeed] use "sein" as their auxiliary, even though they do not really describe motion or changes of state.

Summary

The following table summarizes the main points by some contrastive examples:
 

Formation of the past participle

Strong [Irregular] vs Weak [Regular] Verbs

Past participles of strong [irregular] verbs end in -en. Past particples of weak [regular] verbs end in -t.  Past particples of mixed verbs (the 8 or so weak verbs that are nevertheless irregular) also end in -t.

Rules for the "ge"

• Normally, "ge-" is placed in front of the past particple: geschlafen, gelacht, gesagt, gesehen...
• Separable prefix verbs have the "ge" between the prefix and the rest of the verb: ferngesehen, aufgemacht, aufgestanden, mitgekommen...
• Verbs with inseparable prefixes such as "be-," "ent-," "ver-," and "ge-" do not get a "ge" in their past participles: bezahlt, entdeckt, verstanden, gefallen...
• Verbs ending in -ieren are always weak and don't add "ge": studiert, dekoriert, alarmiert...

Summary

The following table summarizes the main points regarding the formation of the past participle:

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Präteritum [Narrative Past, Simple Past, Imperfect]

Here is the pattern of endings for the strong verbs in this tense:
 

Notice that this pattern of endings (i.e. no ending for the first and third person singular) is already familiar to you from the pattern of endings for the modal verbs in the present tense.  The verb "sein" actually follows this pattern without any irregularities:
 

Here is the pattern of endings for the weak and mixed verbs in this tense:
 

Again, this pattern of endings (i.e. no ending for the first and third person singular) will already be familiar because it is the same as the pattern of endings for the common "pseudo-modal verb" "möchte" in the present tense.  The verb "haben" follows this pattern without any irregularities:

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Plusquamperfekt [Past Perfect]

Exampes

Note that the "other" clause accompanying a clause in the Plusquamperfekt can be in the Präteritum (in more formal writing) or the Perfekt (in speaking or informal writing). It is occasionally possible for both clauses to be in the Plusquamperfekt, as in the last example.

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Futur

Wollen vs Werden

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Imperativ

Informal (Du-) Imperative

Click here for more detailed charts and more examples

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Reflexive Verben

• A verb is reflexive if the object of the action is also the subject of the action, i.e. if someone is doing something to him- or herself, as when I introduce myself or I buy myself a new Bruce Springsteen CD.  There are many common sense parallels here between German and English, but some verbs are reflexive in German and not in English, and vice versa.
• The reflexive pronoun comes "ASAP" in the sentence, i.e. generally immediately after any other pronouns in the sentence, bearing in mind that the verb's position is fixed and all the other sentence elements must work around it.
• The reflexive pronoun will be in the accusative if the person performing the action of the reflexive verb is the only object of that action.  If another object is specified, the reflexive pronoun will be in the dative.  Thus if I just say that I am washing myself, I use an accusative reflexive pronoun (Ich wasche mich), but if I specify the part of myself that I am washing, I use a reflexive pronoun in the dative, because now that part of my body is the direct object of the action and I'm just the recipient/beneficiary of that action (e.g. Ich wasche mir die Füße).
• You only really need to remember this distinction in the ich- and du-forms, because for all other forms of the reflexive pronoun, the accusative and dative forms are the same:

Examples

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