This is something I ask around the class after every weekend. And I love hearing the different responses. It ranges from „gut“ to „nicht so gut“ and „wunderschön“. It makes you realize we all shared the same weekend and yet came out with different experiences and memories.

Today in class we happened to learn about Plusquamperfekt. Remember Past Perfect tense in English? Well that’s your Plusquamperfekt in German. You use this type of tense to talk about an event that already happened before another event that ALSO took place in the past. For instance, when I arrived at the bus stop, the bus had already departed. As you can see, the bus departing had already happened before I arrived at the bus stop. That ladies and gentlemen is your Plusquamperfekt. It’s quite simple if you ask me. It also comes along with a mini rule to make it easier to follow. The Plusquamperfekt is written by using the auxiliary verb “haben” and “sein” in Präteritum along with the Partizip 2.

Zum Beispiel-  Ich hatte den ganzen Tag gearbeitet. Danach habe ich eingekauft. So here you can see, we are talking about two events that happened in the past where one happened before the other and we are also following the rule of using haben in Präteritum form along with partizip 2. And it’s as simple as that =)

Elza