KS4 · German · Year 10
Digital Detox: perfect tense, imperfect tense, 'gerade'
Media and technology: Mein Leben online
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/12
Your learning goal
I can use strong verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses, including with 'gerade', in the context of technology and digital detox.
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Digital Detox: perfect tense, imperfect tense, 'gerade': 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 strong verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses, including with 'gerade', in the context of technology and digital detox.
Key learning points
- Strong verbs form past participles with 'ge-' and '-en'. Some have a vowel change, such as 'ei' to 'ie' or 'ie' to 'o'.
- The imperfect tense is usually used in written texts for narration. The perfect tense is much more common in speaking.
- The imperfect tense forms ‘hatte’, ‘war’, and ‘es gab’ are often used in spoken as well as written German.
- Use 'gerade' with the perfect tense to mean 'just (now)'.
- Use 'gerade' with the imperfect tense to express that the action was taking place when something else happened.
Words to know
- perfect tense
- past tense formed with the present tense of 'sein' or 'haben' and a past participle
- imperfect tense
- single-word past tense used mainly to narrate past events in writing
- strong verb (perfect tense)
- verb whose past participle adds ‘en’ and often changes the stem vowel, e.g., 'geflogen'.
- strong verb (imperfect tense)
- verb which changes the stem vowel in the imperfect tense, e.g., ‘blieb’
- gerade
- adverb meaning 'just (now)'
Common mistakes
Always use the imperfect tense to translate the English simple past, e.g., 'I chatted online.'.
The perfect tense is far more common in German and is used for both the English simple past and perfect tense in speaking. The imperfect is used mainly to narrate past events in writing. However, 'hatte', 'war' and 'es gab' are used in speaking too.
For parents, carers and teachers
- The imperfect strong verbs in Learning Cycle 2, and the use of 'gerade' in Learning Cycle 3, are Higher tier only.