If you have just started taking German lessons or studied the German language for some time, then rest assured that understanding German tenses is much more straightforward than many think.
In a previous blog, I already touched on the subject. Today I would like to focus on how I go about teaching German tenses during my lessons.
Let’s look at the Present: Simple Present and Present Progressive are expressed with the Present tense (das Präsens) in German. The German present tense describes anything that happens in the present or regularly, facts and the truth, or anything that might occur in the foreseeable future. Whereas this is easily understood and practised, the challenge is to express questions in German using the present tense.
Many of my students are tempted to use an auxiliary verb in addition to the main verb when posing questions in German, as you do when using the simple present or the present progressive. German, however, only requires the conjugated (finite) verb in 2nd position in 1st position for yes/no questions.
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