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 Excercises

We have only chosen 15 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 gave very little to practice grammatically. Though there aren’t a ton of verbs in the imperfect tense, since there isn’t much else to practice and since we’ve never gone over the imperfect tense before that’s what I’ve chosen to focus on for this song. 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
Bett (pl Betten)	bed; quilt, duvet	neut noun	Bett
Fernweh (pl Fernwehe)	wanderlust	neut noun	Fernweh
Flimmern (pl Flimmerns)	shimmering, flickering, twinkling	neut noun	Flimmern
für immer	forever		für immer
genau	exactly, precisely, just	adv	genau
Kerzenschein (pl Kerzenscheine)	candlight	masc noun	Kerzenschein
Liebe (pl Lieben)	love	fem noun	Liebe
Plan (pl Pläne)	plan; schedule; map	masc noun	Pläne
Schatten (pl Schatten)	shadow; shade	masc noun	Schatten
sich fühlen	to feel	reg verb	sich fühlen
Stadt (pl Städte)	town, city; city council	fem noun	Stadt
tauschen	to exchange, swap, barter	reg verb	tauschеn
verpassen	to miss, miss out on	reg verb	verpass’
wegmüssen	to have to go, have to leave, have to be removed	irreg sep verb	wegmuss
weiterlaufen	to go on, keep one walking/running	irreg sep verb	weiterlaufen

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense (also called the preterite in English and das Präteritum or das Imperfekt in German) is one of the 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 prefect 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.

Conjugations

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

sitzen: to sit, be seated

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich saß	wir saßen
Second person	du saß(es)t	ihr saß(e)t
Third person	er/sie/es saß	sie/Sie saßen

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

werden: to get, become

	Singular	Plural
First person	ich wurde	wir wurden
Second person	du wurdest	ihr wurdet
Third person	er/sie/es wurde	sie/Sie wurden