German Grammar A–Z
Look up German grammar topics A–Z, organized by category and level — with clear explanations and examples.
The Past Perfect (Plusquamperfekt)
In German, when you want to express an action that happened in the past, you can use the present perfect (Perfekt), simple past (Präteritum) or past perfect (Plusquamperfekt). Among these, the past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) expresses an action in the past, but in terms of time, the Plusquamperfekt happened before the action in the Perfekt and Präteritum. Today's article will help you understand Plusquamperfekt better.
Let's get started!!!
1. Distinguishing the past perfect from the simple past and the present perfect:
- The past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) expresses an action that happened in the past. If the present perfect (Perfekt) and simple past (Präteritum) express the past (Vergangenheit), then the Plusperfekt expresses an even earlier past (Vorvergangenheit). The past perfect expresses an action that took place before the action in the simple past and present perfect.
2. Structure: hatten/ waren + Partizip II
|
Letztes Jahr war ich nach Berlin umgezogen. |
Gestern kam ich nach Vietnam zurück. |
|
Plusquamperfekt |
Präteritum |
|
(I had moved to Berlin last year. Yesterday I came back to Vietnam.) → The action of moving to Berlin took place in the past and it happened before the action of returning to Vietnam yesterday, so the past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) is used |
|
3. Waren oder hatten
- In the structure of the past perfect, the use of the auxiliary verb waren (past of the verb sein) or hatten (past of the verb haben) depends on the main verb (similar to the Perfekt):
+ waren goes with verbs of motion (gehen, fahren,...), change of state (aufstehen…) and special verbs (bleiben, passieren,...)
+ hatten goes with all the remaining verbs
4. Signal words
- The past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) is often accompanied by temporal conjunctions such as als (when), bevor (before), nachdem (after). For example:
1. Als er nach Hause ging (Präteritum), hatte seine Frau gekocht (Plusquamperfekt).
(When he went home, his wife had already cooked.)
→ Plusquamperfekt in the main clause (Hauptsatz)
2. Nachdem Matilda umgezogen war (Plusquamperfekt), fühlte sie sich oft einsam (Präteritum).
(After Matilda had moved, she often felt lonely.)
→ Plusquamperfekt in the subordinate clause (Nebensatz) with Nachdem
3. Sie hatte Kaffee getrunken (Plusquamperfekt), bevor Julia telefoniert hat (Präteritum).
(She had drunk coffee before Julia phoned.)
→ Plusquamperfekt in the main clause (Hauptsatz)
!!!Note: Plusquamperfekt can be used in both spoken and written language
