{"id":11617,"date":"2020-04-15T23:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T23:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=11617"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:22:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:22:02","slug":"change-of-routine-german-simple-past-tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/change-of-routine-german-simple-past-tense\/","title":{"rendered":"Change Of Routine (German Simple Past Tense)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! How is life looking for you lately? I think it\u2019s true for the majority of people at the moment that routines have changed. Certain things that we used to do, we aren\u2019t doing any more, and new habits and routines have formed in their place. In this post I\u2019d like to show you how to express in German that you used to do something, but not any more \u2013 either because you don\u2019t do it any more at all, or because the way you do it has changed.<\/p>\n

Ich wache um 6 Uhr auf.<\/strong>
\nI wake up at 6 am.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sound familiar? Writing about your Alltag<\/strong> (daily routine) is one of the first things you do in German lessons. It is effective because it teaches you several things at once, including verbs, times, and how to use the present tense. In fact, most people I\u2019ve met who studied German at school can remember at least one sentence from their \u2018daily routine\u2019 school lesson!<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

But humans (hopefully) don\u2019t have the same routine for their entire lives. So what happens when aspects of your routine change, like they have done lately, and you want to express that?<\/p>\n

In English, you\u2019d say something like:<\/p>\n

I used to wake up at 6am, but now I wake up at 8am (or: I always woke up at 6am, but now I wake up at 8am).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In German, this would translate to:<\/p>\n

Ich wachte immer um 6 Uhr auf, aber jetzt wache ich um 8 Uhr auf.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s break this sentence down in German. It uses the separable verb aufwachen – to wake up.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ich wachte<\/span> immer um 6 Uhr auf,<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sentence uses the simple past tense (called Pr\u00e4teritum<\/em> in German). This tense is mainly used in written German, such as in novels and reports, to talk about something which started and finished in the past. But it is also used to talk about things that used to happen regularly, and don’t any more \u2013 as is the case with our daily routine!<\/p>\n

The word immer<\/strong> (always) makes it clear that this is something you did regularly<\/em> in the past.<\/p>\n

Now for the second part of the sentence:<\/p>\n

\u2026aber jetzt wache ich<\/span> um 8 Uhr auf.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018Aber jetzt\u2019<\/strong> is the linking phrase. It means \u2018but now\u2019 and tells us that what you do now is different to what you used to do.<\/p>\n

This part of the sentence is in the present tense<\/em> because it describes what you do now.<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

Here is another example, using the verb essen – to eat<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

Ich a\u00df<\/span> immer mit Kollegen, aber jetzt esse ich<\/span> mit meiner Familie.<\/strong>
\nI always ate\/used to eat<\/span> with colleagues, but now I eat<\/span> with my family<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this instance the simple past tense verb \u2013 essen<\/em> \u2013 is irregular, so it looks a little different. Ich a\u00df<\/strong> is \u2018I ate\u2019 in the simple past tense. See the end of this post for the full verb conjugation.<\/p>\n

As you can see, the rest of the sentence follows the same structure as in the first example.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

Here is one more example, using the verb lesen – to read<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

Ich las<\/span> immer eine Stunde pro Tag, aber jetzt lese ich<\/span> zwei Stunden pro Tag.<\/strong>
\nI always read\/used to read<\/span> one hour per day, but now I read<\/span> two hours per day.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope this makes sense! How has your Alltag (daily routine) changed? How would you express that in German?<\/p>\n

Here are the conjugations of the above verbs (aufwachen, essen and lesen) in the German simple past tense:<\/p>\n

essen \u2013 to eat<\/strong><\/p>\n

ich a\u00df \u2013 I ate
\ndu a\u00df(es)t \u2013 You ate
\ner\/sie\/es a\u00dft \u2013 He\/she\/it ate
\nwir a\u00dfen \u2013 We ate
\nihr a\u00df(e)t – You (plural) ate
\nSie\/sie a\u00dfen \u2013 You (formal)\/they ate<\/p>\n

lesen \u2013 to read<\/strong><\/p>\n

ich las \u2013 I read
\ndu las(es)t \u2013 You read
\ner\/sie\/es las \u2013 He\/she\/it read
\nwir lasen \u2013 We read
\nihr las(e)t \u2013 You (plural) read
\nsie\/Sie lasen \u2013 You (formal)\/they read<\/p>\n

aufwachen \u2013 to wake up<\/strong><\/p>\n

ich wachte auf \u2013 I woke up
\ndu wachtest auf \u2013 You woke up
\ner\/sie\/es wachte auf \u2013 He\/she\/it woke up
\nwir wachten auf \u2013 We woke up
\nihr wachtet auf \u2013 You (plural) woke up
\nSie\/sie wachten auf \u2013 You (formal)\/they woke up<\/p>\n

Click here for a post from the archives about this tense, if you’d like to read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! How is life looking for you lately? I think it\u2019s true for the majority of people at the moment that routines have changed. Certain things that we used to do, we aren\u2019t doing any more, and new habits and routines have formed in their place. In this post I\u2019d like to show you…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":11621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[533766,8885,533767,12133,95131,6,3563,2376,95194,155,177],"class_list":["post-11617","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-alltag","tag-changes","tag-daily-routine","tag-german-grammar","tag-german-language","tag-grammar","tag-imperfect","tag-past-tense","tag-prateritum","tag-tense","tag-tenses"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11617"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11633,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions\/11633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}