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Regular Verbs in the Preterite Tense - Intermediate German with Herr Antrim #13
Hello, German learners.
In the last video Rainer read a story.
This story was kept quite simple,
but it showed you a lot of regular verbs in the preterite tense.
Today I will explain the rule for that to you.
As I said in the eleventh lesson, the preterite is mostly used
in order to express something in the past tense when writing.
The preterite is also known as “the simple past tense”,
because you usually only use one verb in order to express this past tense.
Regular verbs in the preterite include a “T” between the verb stem and the ending.
This “T” marks in German the past,
just as “ED” does in English.
Let’s look at an example.
In the present tense, we conjugate the verb “sagen” like this:
I say
you say
he, she, it says
we say
you say
they, you say
In order to form the preterite,
we add a “T” between the verb stem and the ending.
I said
you sayd
he, she, it sayd
we said
you sayd
they, you said
As you might have noticed,
the verbs with “du”, “er, sie, es” and “ihr” are difficult to pronounce
and also look weird.
With “er, sie, es” the solution is simple.
We simply replace the last “T”,
which is a present tense ending, with an “E”.
said
he, she, it said
For “sagen” with “du” and “ihr” we need a helper.
A vowel that helps us to pronounce this verb.
Here we also use “E”.
sagen - to say
I said
you said
he, she, it said
we said
you said
they said
you said
If you want to simplify this concept,
you could say that the endings are as follows:
ich -te
du -test
er, sie, es -te
wir -ten
ihr -tet
And sie -ten
And now example sentences with the verb “machen”.
machen - to do, make
Ich machte den ganzen Tag nichts. - I did nothing the entire day.
Was machtest du? - What did you do?
Der Mann machte, was er wollte. - The man did what he wanted.
Wir machten eine Liste. - We made a list.
Ihr machtet ein gutes Angebot. - You made a good offer.
Die Diener machten, was die Prinzessin befahl. - The servants did what the princess commanded.
If a verb stem ends with “D” or “T”,
we again use the helping vowel “E”
and put it between the verb stem and the ending,
just as we did with “ihr sagtet”.
For example:
Ich redete mit dem Lehrer. - I talked with the teacher.
Redetest du mit deiner Mutter? - Did you talk with your mother?
Die Krankenschwester redete mit den Eltern des Kindes. - The nurse talked with the parents of the child.
Die Leute redeten und wir hörten nicht zu. - The people talked and we didn't listen.
Redetet ihr mit dem Bürgermeister. - Did you talk with the mayor?
Die Studenten redeten über Moral und Religion. - The students talked about morals and religion.
Ich arbeitete in einem Lebensmittelgeschäft. - I worked in a grocery store.
Arbeitetest du am ersten Weihnachtstag? - Did you work on Christmas Day?
Mein Vater arbeitete als Mechaniker. - My father worked as a mechanic.
Wir arbeiteten zusammen. - We worked together.
Arbeitetet ihr an Sylvester? - Did you work on New Year's Eve?
Die Verkäufer arbeiteten die ganze Nacht. - The sales people worked the entire night.
This rule also applies, if there are two consonants next to each other
and the sound of these consonants are not the same.
For example:
Ich atmete tief ein. - I breathed in deeply.
Du atmetest aus. - You breathed out.
Der Fisch atmete unter dem Wasser. - The fish breathed under the water.
Wir atmeten nicht unter dem Wasser. - We didn't breathe under water.
Atmetet ihr? - Did you breathe?
Die Bäume atmeten auch. - The trees breathed too.
Das sind all die Regeln für regelmäßige Verben im Präteritum.
Ich glaube wir brauchen mehr Beispiele, aber.
Das mache ich jetzt.
Ich glaubte an Gott. - I believed in God.
Warum zeigtest du ihm deine Münzensammlung nicht? - Why didn't you show him your coin collection?
Das bedeutete viel Arbeit für mich. - That meant a lot of work for me.
Wir führten die Ponys auf dem Weg. - We led the ponies on the path.
Was meintet ihr darüber. - What did you think about that?
Die Neandertaler lebten vor langer Zeit. - The neandertals lived a long time ago.
Stelltest du das Buch zurück auf den Regal? - Did you put the book back on the shelf?
Er spielte oft Schach im Park. - He often played chess in the park.
Wir brauchten zehn tausend Euro. - We needed ten thousand Euros.
Warum folgtet ihr mir? - Why did you follow me?
Die klugen Schüler lernten Deutsch. - The smart students learned German.
Maybe that is enough examples for today.
You should practice this tense now.
Here is a list of other regular verbs,
which I didn’t use in this video.
If you are looking online for German lessons,
you should check out Lingoda.
Their teachers are native speakers and their lessons are fantastic.
There is a link in the description for that.
If you would like to see other videos with me, you can click those links.
Next week Rainer will read another story,
but this story will feature many more irregular verbs.
That is all for today. Thanks for watching. Until next time. Bye.