Perfekt: haben or sein? German auxiliary verbs
The Perfekt is the everyday way to talk about the past in German: haben or sein + Partizip II. Which auxiliary a verb takes depends on the verb and is best learned per verb, but one rule does most of the work.
The rule
- sein: verbs of movement from A to B (go, come, fly) or change of state (wake up, die, grow).
- haben: almost everything else, especially verbs with an object (transitive) and reflexive verbs.
The numbers in Wortino's verbs
Of 1586 published verbs, 1384 take haben and 202 take sein.
- A1: 154 haben, 20 sein (11% sein)
- A2: 361 haben, 60 sein (14% sein)
- B1: 869 haben, 122 sein (12% sein)
So haben is far more common: when in doubt, haben is usually right, but learn the movement and change-of-state verbs separately.
Wortino stores one auxiliary per verb; a few verbs can take both.
Examples of verbs that take sein
- gehen to gogegangen · conjugation
- kommen to comegekommen · conjugation
- werden to become; will (future auxiliary)geworden · conjugation
- fahren to drive; to go (by vehicle)gefahren · conjugation
- bleiben to stay; to remaingeblieben · conjugation
- sein to begewesen · conjugation
- sterben to diegestorben · conjugation
- passieren to happen; to pass (through)passiert · conjugation
- ziehen to move, relocate (with sein); to pull (with ha…gezogen · conjugation
- fallen to fall; (also idiomatic: mir fällt etwas schwe…gefallen · conjugation
- laufen to run; (also: to walk, go, colloquial)gelaufen · conjugation
- schwimmen to swimgeschwommen · conjugation
Examples of verbs that take haben
- sagen to saygesagt · conjugation
- machen to do; to makegemacht · conjugation
- sehen to seegesehen · conjugation
- tun to dogetan · conjugation
- geben to givegegeben · conjugation
- schonen to spare, go easy on, protectgeschont · conjugation
- sprechen to speakgesprochen · conjugation
- glauben to believegeglaubt · conjugation
- denken to thinkgedacht · conjugation
- lassen to let; to allow; to leave (alone)gelassen · conjugation
- finden to findgefunden · conjugation
- wissen to know (a fact)gewusst · conjugation
More guides
Study it with cards
Wortino turns words into flashcards with spaced repetition: a word you struggle with comes back soon, one you know comes back less often.