{"id":11727,"date":"2020-05-20T23:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T23:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=11727"},"modified":"2020-05-20T11:30:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T11:30:20","slug":"the-german-verb-haben-to-have-4-tenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-verb-haben-to-have-4-tenses\/","title":{"rendered":"The German Verb Haben – To Have (4 Tenses)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! If you\u2019re a fairly new German learner, this post will benefit you as it covers one of the basics of the language. If you\u2019re not new to the language, it\u2019s still a good idea to revisit the basics from time to time! Today we\u2019re looking at the verb haben<\/strong> (to have) and its conjugations in the present, future, and 2 types of past tense. For a post on the verb sein<\/strong>, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

haben \u2013 to have<\/h1>\n
\"\"

Hast du Zeit? – Do you have time? Image via pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

First off, here is the verb in the present tense.<\/p>\n

haben \u2013 present tense<\/h3>\n

ich habe<\/strong> \u2013 I have
\ndu hast<\/strong> \u2013 you have (informal; addressing one person only)
\ner\/sie\/es hat<\/strong> \u2013 he\/she\/it has
\nwir haben<\/strong> \u2013 we have
\nihr habt<\/strong> \u2013 you have (addressing more than one person)
\nsie haben<\/strong> \u2013 they have
\nSie haben<\/strong> \u2013 you have (formal)<\/p>\n

Like I said in the post on sein<\/strong>, note the difference between sie haben<\/strong> (they have) and Sie haben<\/strong> (you have \u2013 formal). The way you can tell in writing if it\u2019s a group being addressed, or one person being addressed in the formal way, is by the capital letter S on Sie<\/strong>. This S<\/strong> will always be capitalised when using the formal \u2018you\u2019, but not for the word \u2018sie\u2019 (they). However, if it\u2019s at the beginning of a sentence, then the word Sie<\/strong> will of course always be capitalised! In this case, you can figure it out based on its context. We have a few blog posts on the use of the formal and informal \u2018you\u2019, which you can find here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The verb in action:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Du hast<\/strong> Zeit
\nYou have time<\/p>\n

Wir haben<\/strong> Zeit
\nWe have time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

haben \u2013 past tense<\/h3>\n

There are two past tenses in German, one being the simple past tense (Imperfekt) and the other being the present perfect tense (Perfekt).<\/p>\n

haben – simple past tense<\/h3>\n

The simple past tense is used to describe an event that started and ended in the past, and no longer has a link to the present. It describes one, specific event, rather than a regular event. For this reason it is mainly used in written German, in things like newspaper articles, stories and reports.<\/p>\n

ich hatte<\/strong> \u2013 I had
\ndu hattest<\/strong> \u2013 you had (informal; addressing one person only)
\ner\/sie\/es hatte<\/strong> \u2013 he\/she\/it had
\nwir hatten<\/strong> \u2013 we had
\nihr hattet<\/strong> \u2013 you had (addressing more than one person)
\nsie hatten<\/strong> \u2013 they had
\nSie hatten<\/strong> \u2013 you had (formal)<\/p>\n

\n

The verb in action:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Er hatte<\/strong> Zeit
\nHe had time<\/p>\n

Ich hatte<\/strong> Zeit
\nI had time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

haben \u2013 present perfect tense<\/h3>\n

This tense is used to describe regular events in the past – something which you have done, and do regularly, or might do again. It begins with the present tense conjugation (\u2018ich habe\u2019), but adds \u2018gehabt\u2019 to make it past tense. When using this tense, the word \u2018gehabt\u2019 goes to the end of the sentence.<\/p>\n

ich habe gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 I had\/have had
\ndu hast gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 you had\/have had (informal; addressing one person only)
\ner\/sie\/es hat gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 he\/she\/it had\/has had
\nwir haben gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 we had\/have had
\nihr habt gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 you had\/have had (addressing more than one person)
\nsie haben gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 they had\/have had
\nSie haben gehabt<\/strong> \u2013 you had\/have had (formal)<\/p>\n

\n

The verb in action:<\/strong><\/p>\n

sie haben<\/strong> Zeit gehabt<\/strong>
\nThey had time<\/p>\n

sie hat<\/strong> Zeit gehabt<\/strong>
\nshe had time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

haben \u2013 future tense<\/h3>\n

The future tense pairs with the helper verb werden<\/strong> \u2013 to become. Like before, the \u2018haben\u2019 part goes to the end of the sentence.<\/p>\n

ich werde haben<\/strong> \u2013 I will have
\ndu wirst haben<\/strong> \u2013 you will have (informal; addressing one person only)
\ner\/sie\/es wird haben<\/strong> \u2013 he\/she\/it will have
\nwir werden haben<\/strong> \u2013 we will have
\nihr werdet haben<\/strong> \u2013 you will have (addressing more than one person)
\nsie werden haben<\/strong> \u2013 they will have
\nSie werden haben<\/strong> \u2013 you will have (formal)<\/p>\n

\n

The verb in action:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ihr<\/strong> werdet<\/strong> Zeit haben<\/strong>
\nYou will (all) have time<\/p>\n

Er wird<\/strong> Zeit haben<\/strong>
\nHe will have time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To finish, an exercise! See if you can translate the following sentences. The answers are below the newsletter box. Viel Gl\u00fcck<\/strong> (good luck)!<\/p>\n

1\/ Ich habe Zeit
\n2\/ du hast Zeit
\n3\/ wir haben Zeit
\n4\/ Sie haben Zeit
\n5\/ du hattest Zeit
\n6\/ wir hatten Zeit
\n7\/ er hat Zeit gehabt
\n8\/ ihr habt Zeit gehabt
\n9\/ ich habe Zeit gehabt
\n10\/ ich werde Zeit haben
\n11\/ sie werden Zeit haben
\n12\/ sie wird Zeit haben
\n13\/ du wirst Zeit haben<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ANSWERS:<\/p>\n

1\/ I have time
\n2\/ You have time (informal; one person)
\n3\/ We have time
\n4\/ You have time (formal)
\n5\/ You had time (informal; one person)
\n6\/ We had time
\n7\/ He had time
\n8\/ You (all) had time (addressing more than one person)
\n9\/ I had time
\n10\/ I will have time
\n11\/ they will have time
\n12\/ she will have time
\n13\/ you will have time (informal; one person)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! If you\u2019re a fairly new German learner, this post will benefit you as it covers one of the basics of the language. If you\u2019re not new to the language, it\u2019s still a good idea to revisit the basics from time to time! Today we\u2019re looking at the verb haben (to have) and its…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":11745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[11971,8],"tags":[168698,24397,51,410881,12133,95131,6,95365,376023,177,166],"class_list":["post-11727","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar-language","category-language","tag-basics","tag-beginners","tag-conjugation","tag-easy-grammar","tag-german-grammar","tag-german-language","tag-grammar","tag-haben-to-have","tag-language","tag-tenses","tag-verbs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727","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=11727"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11747,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727\/revisions\/11747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}