A verb’s tense has to do with the time of the action, and its mood has to do with the reality of the action.
Below are some of the basic tenses and moods in English.
TENSE | MOOD | ||
Indicative | Conditional | Imperative | |
Present | he does it | he would do it | Do it! |
Preterite | he did it | he would have done it | |
Perfect | he has done it | ||
Past Perfect | he had done it | ||
Future | he will do it | ||
Future Perfect | he will have done it | ||
Below are the tenses and moods in German. The statement is the same as above, using er (he), es (it), and the strong verb tun (to do):
TENSE | MOOD | |||
Indikativ | Konjunktiv I | Konjunktiv II | Imperativ | |
Präsens | Er tut es | Er tue es | Er würde es tun | Tu(e) es! |
Präteritum | Er tat es | Er habe es getan | Er hätte es getan | |
Perfekt | Er hat es getan | |||
Plusquamperfekt | Er hatte es getan | |||
Futur I | Er wird es tun | Er werde es tun | ||
Futur II | Er wird es getan haben | Er werde es getan haben | ||
The tenses:
Although most of the German tenses and moods look very much like their English counterparts, there are some big differences in how they're used.
In particular, the present and perfect tenses (Präsens and Perfekt) account for a huge proportion of actual German speech.
The Präsens is used for much of the future as well as the present.
The Perfekt is used for almost anything that happened in the past.
1) The Präsens corresponds to the simple present tense in English ("I take the bus") as well as the “emphatic” ("I do take the bus").
It can also be used to refer to future events, in which case it’s called the Futuristisches Präsens (“futuristic present”).
We have a futuristic present in English too (e.g. "I get paid tomorrow" means "I will get paid tomorrow") but in German it’s more common.
And like all German verb forms, the Präsens can also translate to the equivalent continuous form in English, in this case "I am taking the bus."
2) the Präteritum and English preterite are both formed with either a hard consonant ending (weak verbs), a vowel shift (strong verbs) or both (mixed verbs). Please note that In English we mainly use the preterite, but in spoken German the Perfekt dominates.
3) The Perfekt is formed by conjugating the verb haben (or sometimes sein) in the present tense and adding the participle of the main verb, just the way we do with the verb "to have" in English.
4) The Plusquamperfekt is directly related to the past perfect (also called the pluperfect) in English. It’s used for an action that was already completed at some point in the past. It’s formed the same way as the Perfekt, except that it uses the past (Präteritum) form of haben or sein instead of the present form.
5) the Futur I tense is similar to our future tense; it uses werden the same way we use "will" in English: "I will read it" --> Ich werde es lesen. But note that we have other ways of expressing the future in English (like I’m going to read it) that don’t exist in German – and they also use the futuristic present tense in ways that we wouldn’t.
6) the Futur II is similar to the English future perfect, with will + have in English and werden + haben/sein in German: "I will have read it" --> Ich werde es gelesen haben.
The Moods
1) The Indikativ/Indicative mood is the most common in both languages, used for describing reality: things that have actually happened, are happening or are expected to happen.
2) The Konjunktiv I. Note: you don’t need to learn to use it actively unless you’re a journalist. It’s in italics in the table above.
It serves to distance the writer from indirect or reported speech: according to his spokesman, he knows nothing about the scandal.
There is no useful English equivalent, and it’s used almost exclusively in news reporting.
3) The Konjunktiv II is similar to the conditional mood in English. It expresses hypothetical and/or conditional actions, and it usually uses a form of werden in the same way that we use "would" ("I wouldn’t do that" --> Ich würde das nicht tun).
4) The Imperativ/Imperative mood is used for commands ("Go away!"; "Clean your room!").
It’s the easiest mood to learn in either language, because it only exists in the present tense and the second person.