A Simple Past?
Are you curious why the simple past is called “simple”? Because it is easy in the sense that you only have to “worry” about one verb; one conjugation and no there's no question about which helping verb. But this would not be German, if it was all that easy! As usual, there are the irregular verbs:
| Gehen: to go | Finden: to find |
|---|---|
| ich ging | ich fand |
| du ging st | du fand (e) st |
| er/sie/es ging | er/sie/es fand |
| wir ging en | wir fand en |
| ihr ging t | ihr fand (e) t |
| sie/Sie ging en | sie/Sie fand en |
As seen before in the present tense, when the stem ends in a -d or -t an -e is added in the du/ihr forms to help pronunciation. The highlighted endings apply to all irregular forms; the stems have to be memorized. Here is a list of some common imperfect tense stems for strong verbs. Remember that the correct endings need to be added to these stems to conjugate them correctly.
| haben = hatte | had |
| trinken = trank | drank |
| essen = aß | ate |
| nehmen = nahm | took |
| kommen = kam | came |
| fahren = fuhr | rode, traveled |
| lesen = las | read |
| singen = sang | sung |
| laufen = lief | ran, walked |
| schreiben = schrieb | wrote |
| rufen = rief | called |
| sein = war | was |
| werden = wurde | became |
