German Tenses Cheat Sheet by Joxtel

This tense is the only tense used for the present. The english equivalent for this:

regular verbs take the stem word and replace the -en/-n with a new ending depending on the pronoun used. when a verb ends in -en/-n it is in the infinitive state.

note,
- If the infinitive stem ends in –s, –ß, –x, or –z, the s of the du-ending is not needed
- if the infinitive stem ends in -d or -t the endings require an "­e" before they are added -st > -est

These verbs do not follow the same pattern, and must be memorised

Some irregular verbs having a, au, or e in their infinitive stems.
There are four types of stem changes: a > ä, au > äu, e > i, and e > ie.

Model verbs usually replace the umleted letter when conjug­ated. There are 6

Note
-sollen doesnt have a letter change but follows the same pattern

The past perfect tense describes events or situations that comes before another point in the past that has been establ­ished through the present perfect or the simple past tenses. It is used to make it clear that one event happened before another in the past.

This tense is the same as present perfec­t(b­esides when it is used), but in this tense:
Haben > hatte
Sein > war

use the same conjug­ations as present perfect.

Simple past is a way to talk in the past tense with as few verbs as possible. The simple past is often used in writing and isnt found commonly in everyday speech.

you might hear it in speech if:
- someone is telling you a story
- its more convient

Regular verbs follow a patten of endings. It is practi­cally the same as the present tense ending, but simple past will have an extra e or te as shown below:

Irregular verbs for simple past doesnt have much of a pattern, you have to remeber which verb is irregu­lar(if the stem change letters when conjug­ated) and which word you replace them with.

there is a rough pattern of changing the stem and adding either -st, -en, -t or nothing

when a mixed verb is conjugated in the simple past, it has the endings of weak verbs and has stem changes.

there arent many and make up a lot of common words, you will remember them through repeated use.

When forming something that is future tense, you use the same rules as present perfect, instead of using haben or sein, you always use Werden

There are no new conjug­ations, use the Present tense conjug­ations.

this tense is used to express future intent­ions, although, in spoken German, it is more common to use the present tense for this.

This is also called the perfect tense. The tense is used to speak about actions completed in the recent past.

to use this tense you must use an auxiliary verb and a past participle verb

for the auxiliary verb itll be haben or sein

to turn a regular verb in a past participle verb, you must add ge- to the start, and -t to the end
(with the exeption of any regular verb that ends in -ieren)

Irregular verbs follow the same pattern as regular verbs, but instead of adding -t, -en is added. The stem may also change

mixed verbs use ge- prefix and -t suffix like regular verbs, but the stem may change like irregular verbs.

As was stated before, along with a verb you must also use a auxiliary verb. In this case, haben or sein.

When to use Sein:
- The verb “sein” in perfect tense (Ich bin gewesen – I have been)
- Verbs which describe that somebody or something physically moves to another place (fahren, schwimmen, fliegen, gehen, laufen etc.)
- Verbs which describe a change of state or a verb which normally cannot be performed in “passive” (bleiben, aufwachen, sterben, warden etc.)

When to use Haben:
- The verb “haben” in perfect tense (Ich habe gehabt – I have had)
- All the verbs which do not fulfill the requir­ements to be used with “sein”

The future perfect is uncommon in German. To form the future perfect in German, you take the past participle of the verb being conjugated and use the correct conjug­ation of werden. Then use the approp­riate verb(haben or sein) which is placed at then end of the sentence

The future perfect expresses the assumption that an action will have been completed by the time of speaking, or by a particular point in the future.

auxiliary verb
a verb such as have, be, may, do, shall, will, can, or must

passive and active verbs

When the verb is passive, the subject undergoes the action rather than doing it
Brazil was beaten in the final.

When the verb is active, the subject of the verb is doing the action
France beats Brazil in the final.

A good website to test your conjug­ation skills is German.net, it has 100 plus verbs that you can quiz yourself on and memorise. Its good because you can just chip away at it over time, i found myself doing about 10 verbs a day, making my way through the list, retesting the tenses over and over.

It is possible you need to make an account, its quick, and free and you can stay logged in.

the website also have other stuff you can quiz yourself on, overall i found it very helpful, i hope you do too, reader.

The Conjug­ation page for German.net