Präteritum.
The tense for stories.

Two past tenses. One for speaking, one for writing. Präteritum belongs to written German, to narratives, and to three groups of verbs that use it every single time, even in conversation.

Written German runs on Präteritum

Open any German novel, news article, or formal report and you will see Präteritum everywhere. It is the natural tense for narrating a sequence of events, describing what happened, moving a story forward.

• Er lachte, nickte und sagte nichts.
• DieSitzung begann um 10 Uhr. Sie dauerte drei Stunden.

Each verb moves the story one step forward. That is what Präteritum does best. It is the backbone of narrative German.

How it is formed

For regular verbs, add -te to the stem, then the personal ending.

Person	Example: lernen
ich	ich lernte
du	du lerntest
er · sie · es	er lernte
wir	wir lernten
ihr	ihr lerntet
sie · Sie	sie lernten

Irregular verbs change their stem entirely. These need to be learned, but the most important ones come up constantly and become automatic quickly.

Three groups that always use Präteritum

Even in spoken German, three groups never use Perfekt. They use Präteritum every time. Knowing these three groups means you will never sound wrong in conversation.

1. sein

Most speakers don't say ich bin gewesen in casual speech. Most say war.

• Ich war gestern in Berlin. (I was in Berlin yesterday.)
• Es war kalt. (It was cold.)
• Wir waren zu zweit. (There were two of us.)

2. haben

The same applies to haben. hatte is standard everywhere, spoken and written.

• Ich hattekeineZeit. (I had no time.)
• Sie hatteHunger. (She was hungry.)
• Wir hatteneinProblem. (We had a problem.)

3. Modal verbs

müssen, können, wollen, dürfen, sollen, mögen. All six use Präteritum in past contexts, even in everyday conversation. The Perfekt forms exist but they sound heavy and are almost never used.

Modal verb	Präteritum (ich)	Meaning
müssen	ich musste	I had to
können	ich konnte	I could
wollen	ich wollte	I wanted to
dürfen	ich durfte	I was allowed to
sollen	ich sollte	I was supposed to
mögen	ich mochte	I liked

• Ich musste früh gehen. (I had to leave early.)
• Er konnte nicht kommen. (He could not come.)
• Sie wollte nichts sagen. (She did not want to say anything.)

Präteritum vs. Perfekt: the rule

For everything else in spoken German, use Perfekt. Präteritum in conversation (for regular and most strong verbs) sounds formal and old-fashioned. But for war, hatte, and the modal verbs, it is the only natural choice.

	Spoken	Written / Narrative
Regular verbs	Perfekt	Präteritum
sein	Präteritum	Präteritum
haben	Präteritum	Präteritum
Modal verbs	Präteritum	Präteritum

These same hatte and war forms become auxiliaries in their own right in Plusquamperfekt. The past before the past.