大象传媒

Regular past participles

It's important to know how to form your past participle correctly. This is easy as long as you follow these steps:

  1. Check whether the verb is regular or irregular
  2. Find the stem
  3. Add the beginning and ending to the stem

Let's look at these steps in more detail:

  1. Check in a dictionary or on a verb list whether the German verb you want to use is regular or irregular. Try to remember which it is for the next time you use it. The dictionary or verb list will also usually tell you if the verb takes sein instead of haben.
  2. Finding the stem on a regular verb is easy. Just take the -en or -n off the end of the verb. This will give you the stem.
  3. Adding the beginning and ending to the stem is really simple too. For regular verbs, you just put ge- at the beginning of the stem and replace the now missing -en or -n with a -t at the end.

To find the past participle of spielen (to play):

  1. Check whether the verb is regular or irregular. The verb spielen is regular.
  2. To find the stem, take off the -en, which leaves you with spiel-.
  3. Then add the beginning and ending to the stem. For a regular verb, this is ge- at the beginning and -t at the end.

So, the past participle of spielen is ge + spiel + t > gespielt

The verb spielen is not a verb of motion, so the auxiliary verb must be haben.

To say 'I played' is therefore ich habe gespielt.