Talking About the Past
Perfekt is how spoken German almost always talks about the past: a helping verb carries the person and tense in position 2, while the actual meaning of the sentence waits at the very end.
Perfekt needs two verbs working together
haben or sein conjugates normally in position 2; the Partizip II (the part that actually carries the meaning) gets sent all the way to the end of the clause.
Er arbeitet.
Er hat gearbeitet.
hat stays in position 2 like any conjugated verb; gearbeitet (the real meaning) waits until the very end.
haben or sein?
Most verbs build their Perfekt with haben. A smaller group (mostly verbs of motion or a change of state, plus sein and bleiben themselves) use sein instead.
| Verb | Perfekt | |
|---|---|---|
| haben (most verbs) | machen | hat gemacht |
| haben (most verbs) | sehen | hat gesehen |
| sein (motion) | gehen | ist gegangen |
| sein (change of state) | aufwachen | ist aufgewacht |
A handy shortcut: if the verb describes moving from A to B, or changing from one state to another, it almost always takes sein.
Building the Partizip II
Regular verbs add ge- and -t around the stem. Irregular verbs also add ge-, but end in -en instead, often with a changed stem vowel too. Verbs with an inseparable prefix (be-, ver-, ent-, er-, ge-, zer-, emp-) or ending in -ieren drop ge- entirely.
See It In a Sentence
The Perfekt pieces are highlighted below: the helping verb and the Partizip II, bracketing everything else in between.
Otto hat gestern lange gearbeitet.
Otto worked a long time yesterday.
Ist deine Katze schon nach Hause gekommen?
Has your cat come home yet?
Wir haben ein neues Buch gekauft und es sofort gelesen.
We bought a new book and read it right away. (Two Perfekt verbs share one haben; it doesn't need to repeat.)
A Common Mix-Up
Learners often default to haben for every verb, since it covers the majority of cases. But motion and change-of-state verbs need sein: Ich bin gegangen ("I went"), never Ich habe gegangen. When in doubt, ask whether the verb describes a trip from one place or state to another; if so, reach for sein.