Do german verbs change in the past?

Question

Say that i wanted to write in the past imperfect tense " I played football", would it be " Ich foosball gespielt" or do you only do the ge-t on the past participle if it is regular?. I'm quite confused.

Answer 1

haggesitze is of course right ... but I think German and English are not so different in this respect. In German as in English, there are regular verbs that follow certain rules, and irregular verbs that have their own rules.

Regular verbs for example

talk - talked - talked // reden - redete - geredet

Irregular verbs for example

see - saw - seen // sehen - sah - gesehen

Answer 2

It does not work like in English.

There are "weak" and "strong" German verbs, and "spielen" is a weak one, therefore regular:

infinitive: spielen

1.st person simple past: ich spielte

1.st person perfect tense: ich habe gespielt

Weak verbs normally build their past tense by adding a "-te" to the end of the stem (which is the part of the word you have left when you take away the infinitive ending "-en") and then the personal endings, where the 3rd person is different from the present tense by ending in "-e" like the first person. All the others are the same as the personal endings in the present tense.

Strong verbs build their past tense by changing the vowel in the stem most of the time, and that's why German children at school, same as learners of any age, have to memorize those 3 forms of ALL strong verbs: infinitive, 1.st person simple past, and past participle .

Examples:

to see - sehen, sah, gesehen

to go - gehen, ging, gegangen

to stand - stehen, stand, gestanden

Answer 3

mmm yes and no

german verbs can be written formally or informally..

if you want the informal way then it's just like the present perfect in english:

Ich HABE Fußball GESPIELT

if you want the formal way it is:

Ich SPIELTE Fußball

the same with all the other verbs!

hope it helped!

Answer 4

no thats definitely wrong

its more something like

Ich habe fußball gespielt.

but my german ain't that good.