KS4 · German · Year 11
Bertha von Suttner: perfect tense change of state verbs, superlative adjectives
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IllumED Slides
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Your learning goal
I can use change of state verbs with 'sein' in the perfect tense and form superlatives before nouns, in the context of learning about the pacifist Bertha von Suttner.
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Bertha von Suttner: perfect tense change of state verbs, superlative adjectives: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can use change of state verbs with 'sein' in the perfect tense and form superlatives before nouns, in the context of learning about the pacifist Bertha von Suttner.
Key learning points
- Form the perfect tense using 'sein' with verbs referring to a change of state, e.g., 'ist eingeschlafen'.
- Form the superlative by adding '-ste' to the end of the adjective if it comes before a noun, e.g., 'billigste'.
- Some superlative forms are irregular, e.g., 'beste', 'höchste', 'meiste'. Others have umlauts as in the comparative.
- In 1905, Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Words to know
- perfect tense
- past tense formed with the present tense of 'sein' or 'haben' and a past participle
- sein
- auxiliary verb used to form the perfect tense with some verbs, e.g., change of state verbs
- superlative
- a form of adjective or adverb used to express the highest degree of a quality, e.g., 'the tallest', 'the most interesting'
Common mistakes
Only verbs expressing a change of state take 'sein' in the perfect tense.
Verbs referring to motion, which don't require a direct object (e.g., 'gehen'), take 'sein' in the perfect tense. Most verbs meaning 'happen' (e.g., 'geschehen', 'passieren') and the verbs 'bleiben' and 'sein' also use 'sein'.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Task B1 could be used as a running dictation task prior to completing the gap fill exercise.