Practice some of the vocabulary from this song and its past tense verbs using these flashcards, games and exercises.

Did you miss the analysis for this song? Find it here!

Activities

Vocabulary Exercises

We have only chosen 20 terms out of this song’s lyrics to form our vocabulary list, which can be found below. You can use the following activities to learn and practice this vocabulary.

Vocabulary Flashcards – Learn the vocabulary from this song with our sets of German-to-English and English-to-German flashcards, then test yourself with our interactive flashcards.

Vocabulary Games – Practice the vocabulary for this song using our memory and matching games and our word search puzzle.

Vocabulary Exercises – Fill in the missing vocabulary with drag and drop and fill in the blanks exercises.

Grammar Exercises

This song has a number of verbs in the imperfect tense, so it made sense to go over those. Full conjugations of these verbs can be found below. You can use the following activities to learn and practice these verbs.

Imperfect Verb Flashcards – Practice the imperfect verbs in this song with our sets of German-to-English and English-to-German flashcards, then test yourself with our interactive flashcards.

Imperfect Verb Games – Practice the imperfect verbs in this song using our memory and matching games.

Imperfect Verb Exercises – Practice the imperfect verbs in this song using our drag and drop, fill-in, and highlighting exercises.

Resources

Vocabulary List

Term	Meaning	P of S	Context
abends	in the evening	adv	abends
Benehmen (no pl)	behavior	neut noun	Benehm’n,
bereuen	to regret; repent	reg verb	bereut
damals	at that time, then	adv	damals,
entsetzt	horrified, appalled	adj	entsetzt,
Erlaubnis (pl Erlaubnis)	permission; permit	fem noun	Erlaubnis
fragen	to ask	reg verb	frag’
Gesetz (pl Gesetze)	law, rule	neut noun	Gesetz
Grenze (pl Grenzen)	boundary, border; limit	fem noun	Grenzen
Konsequenz (pl Konsequenzen)	consequence; consistency, rigorousness, strictness	fem noun	Konsequenzen,
Kuss (pl Küsse)	kiss	masc noun	Kuss
lassen	to let; leave	irreg verb	Lass
schön	beautiful, lovely; nice, fine, good; really, considerably	adj	schönsten
schwarzfahren	to travel without a ticket , to fare-dodge	irreg verb	schwarzgefahr’n,
teilen	to divide, split; share	reg verb	teil’n
tot	dead	adj	tot
trocken	dry, arid; without alcohol, off the bottle, on the wagon	adj	trocken
verrückt	insane, crazy, mad	adj	verrücktesten
weit	far, extensive	adj	weit
wirklich	really	adv	wirklich

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense (also called the preterite in English and das Präteritum or das Imperfekt in German) is one of the two tenses* in German that is normally used to discuss events that happened in the past. The other tense is the perfect or das Perfekt.

Speaking about the past in German is much simpler than in English, which has multiple tenses with differences in meaning. The German imperfect covers most past tense occurrences and can be used to translate a variety of English tenses. Let’s take for example the verb arbeiten, meaning to work. Ich arbeitete can translate as I worked, I have worked, I was working, or I did work.

* There is also the pluperfect tense, used to discuss an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time in the past, but we’ll leave that for a later discussion.

Use of the Imperfect

Sounds simple right? If you’re speaking about the past, then you always use the imperfect. Well not so fast. Because the perfect tense (ich habe gearbeitet) can also be used and translated in the same ways.

So if they can both be used to mean the same thing, which tense should you use?

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast grammatical rules. You could use either form and be technically correct. Rather, the choice of the imperfect or the perfect is a matter of style. There are also clear tendencies to be found in the use of native speakers:

• The imperfect tense is not commonly used in conversation.
• The imperfect is commonly used in written language, especially in newspapers and books.
• The verbs sein, haben, werden and wissen are typically used in the imperfect, even in casual speech.
• The six modal verbs (können, müssen, mögen, dürfen, wollen, sollen) are also typically used in the imperfect, even in casual speech.
• The imperfect is commonly used in written language, especially in newspapers and books.
• The imperfect is more common in northern Germany.
• The imperfect is often viewed as sounding fancier or being more eloquent.

Forming the Imperfect Tense

The imperfect of regular verbs is formed by adding the endings in the chart below to the verb stem.

Pronoun	Form of Imperative
ich	verb stem + te
du	verb stem + te + st
er/sie/es	verb stem + te
wir	verb stem + te + n
ihr	verb stem + te + t
sie/Sie	verb stem + te + n

Please note that none of the verbs that appear in the imperfect in this song are regular verbs.

How to conjugate the past tense in German

To conjugate verbs in the simple past, we remove the infinitive ending -en and add the following endings:

The verbs sein/haben are irregular. They are especially important in the simple past:

Notes

• The verbs sein and haben are fully irregular in the imperfect. They are also very commonly used and should be learned. Their conjugations appear below.
• Many irregular verbs take a stem change in the imperfect. Examples below are können (konn-), wissen (wuss-) and müssen (muss-).

Conjugations

The following charts show the full conjugations of the imperfect verbs found in this song.

sein: to be

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich war	wir waren
Second person	du warst	ihr wart
Third person	er/sie/es war	sie/Sie waren

haben: to have, to get – wir, sie

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich hatte	wir hatten
Second person	du hattest	ihr hattet
Third person	er/sie/es hatte	sie/Sie hatten

teilen: to divide, split; share – wir, sie

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich teilte	wir teilten
Second person	du teiltest	ihr teiltet
Third person	er/sie/es teilte	sie/Sie teilten

wollen: to want – wir, sie

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich wollte	wir wollten
Second person	du wolltest	ihr wolltet
Third person	er/sie/es wollte	sie/Sie wollten

können: be able to do, know how to do; be allowed to – ich, er, sie, es

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich konnte	wir konnten
Second person	du konntest	ihr konntet
Third person	er/sie/es konnte	sie/Sie konnten

wissen: to know; be aware of – wir, sie

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich wusste	wir wussten
Second person	du wusstest	ihr wusstet
Third person	er/sie/es wusste	sie/Sie wussten

müssen: to have to, need to, must – wir, sie

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich musste	wir mussten
Second person	du musstest	ihr musstet
Third person	er/sie/es musste	sie/Sie mussten