Hammer's German Grammar and Usage by Professor Martin Durrell ;

Author:Professor Martin Durrell,;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

It is also a typical feature of narration in colloquial speech, as in English:

Gestern Abend geh ich ins Café und seh den Horst Brunner dort an der Theke sitzen

Last night I go down the pub and see Horst Brunner sitting there at the bar

14.3 The Past Tense and the Perfect Tense

14.3.1 The uses of the past and the perfect tenses in German: Summary

In English there is a clear difference in meaning between the past and the perfect tenses, and the sentences ‘I broke my leg’ and ‘I have broken my leg’ are quite distinct in meaning. The English past tense simply tells us that something happened in the past, so that ‘I broke my leg’ tells us that it happened at some time in the past – and it’s probably mended now. The English perfect tense, on the other hand, usually indicates that what happened in the past still has some relevance at the present. When we say ‘I have broken my leg’, for instance, it usually means that it is still broken at the moment of speaking.

The German sentences Ich brach mir das Bein and Ich habe mir das Bein gebrochen are deceptively similar to English. However, there is no clear-cut difference in meaning as in English, and in many contexts either is used without any real difference in meaning. Which one is used is often rather a matter of style or register. The main differences between the two German tenses can be summarised as follows:

The PERFECT tense is used principally:

– to refer to a past action or event which has relevance to the present

– in spoken German, to refer to past actions and events

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