Perfect tense with haben
A2 · Elementary · Cases & Verbs
The rule
haben + past participle (ge-…-t / ge-…-en).
How it works
The perfect tense (Perfekt) describes completed actions and is the usual past tense in speech. It is formed with the present tense of haben or sein plus the past participle. Most verbs use haben, so the pattern "Ich habe … gemacht" is the default. Regular participles add ge- and -t (gemacht); irregular ones add ge- and -en (gesehen).
When to use it
Talk about past actions in everyday speech with haben plus the past participle, which is the usual past tense in spoken German.
Use cases
- Telling a story about yesterday: Ich habe gestern Pizza gegessen
- Reporting what happened in a conversation
- Describing completed actions with a time phrase
Examples
- Ich habe Fußball gespielt – I played football
- Wir haben lange gewartet. – We waited for a long time.
- Hast du den Film schon gesehen? – Have you already seen the film?
- Sie hat das Fenster geöffnet. – She opened the window.
Common mistake
Forming the participle wrongly: "gemacht" is correct, "gemachen" is not.
Memory tip
Regular verbs: ge-stem-t (gemacht). Irregular verbs: ge-stem-en (gesehen), and check the list.
Read the wider picture in our guide: German Verbs and Word Order: Tenses, Modals and Sentence Structure.