The Imperfekt is a past tense that is primarily used in written German. It is used mostly when the format of the communication is narration - telling a story, relating an anecdote from start to finsih.

Several verbs are commonly used in their IMPERFEKT forms in spoken German. These verbs include HABEN and SEIN and ALL MODAL VERBS.

Verbs in the IMPERFEKT do not require a helping verb, as is the case in the Present Perfect Tense. Verbs are located in the second position, as in the present tense.

Weak verbs (these are the same verbs as the "weak verbs" in the Present Perfect or Conversational Past Tense) are conjugated by adding the following endings to the verb stem:

Here are several examples of weak verbs in the Imperfekt:

All modal verbs are weak verbs. Their forms are listed below. In the IMPERFEKT all modal

verbs become regular. All Umlauts are dropped. The conjugation pattern is as above.

Strong verbs (these are the same verbs as the "strong verbs" in the Present Perfect or Conversational Past Tense) are conjugated by adding the following endings to the verb stem:

Here are several examples of strong verbs in the Imperfekt:

Strong verbs are marked by a vowel change in every case. It would be practically impossible to memorize the Imperfekt form of every strong verb, so learning the patterns that these changes tend to follow is an excellent idea. Below is a chart that indicates the patterns that strong verbs tend to follow in the IMPERFEKT and PERFEKT (present perfect) tenses.