Transcript The Narrative Past

The Narrative Past
By: Dan Henderson
Dedicated to: Schuma the Puma
Hey Frau! What’s the
narrative past?
• The narrative past is another way to
speak in the past tense, usually found in
books and newspapers, but isn’t
common in conversations.
• The narrative past is also known as the
simple past, because it’s one of the
easiest tenses you’ve learnt since the
great days of German I.
Well Frau, why is the narrative
past so simple?
Unlike the future and present perfect tenses,
the narrative past does not use an auxillary
verb (Such as werden and haben), but only
uses a modified form of the verb.
• Verbs that are irregular in the present perfect
are also irregular in the narrative past, so you
have slightly less memorizing!
Frau, the words modified forms and
irregular verbs scare me.
• The modified forms of the verbs are
actually simple, though. You simply
take the stem of the verb (zeigen,
machen) and add a -te at the end
(zeigte, machte)
• Irregular verbs are slightly trickier, but
we’ll cover those later.
Okay... Well... How do you
use the narrative past?
• Well, let’s start at the beginning again.
Take the stem of the verb, then add
these endings.
– Te
– Test
– Te
--Ten
--Tet
--Ten
New verb endings!?
Nooooooooooo
• The verb endings are simple! Just
remember that after the -te is added,
they are just like modal auxillary
(können, sollen, müssen) endings.
• In fact, the modal auxillary endings are
the exact same ones that are used for
irregular verbs.
Why did you have to bring up
irregular verbs.
• The irregular verbs are a bit worse than
the regular verbs, but not by much.
• Irregular verbs come in two forms,
normal irregular and weak irregular.
– Normal irregular use modified form of the
stem only (Kam, ging)
– Weak irregulars use a modified form and
also have a -te at the end (Kannte, wusste)
Those irregular verbs looked
nothing like their actual stem.
• Most irregular verbs do look quite
different from their stem, and you will
mostly have to memorize the forms.
Some stems fall under categories like
those in the perfect past though, so that
well help. A bit.
But Fraaaaaau, we hate
memorizing stuff.
• Shut up and learn your endings.
– (No ending)
-- Ten
– St
-- Tet
– (No ending)
-- Ten
Just like the modals!
Remember, the weak irregular verbs have
the same endings as regular verbs do.