How does German form the equivalent of the Romance languages' (Spanish, French, etc.) imperfect tense?

Question

Also, if you know any details on its evolution, that would be very helpful. For those unfamiliar with the term "imperfect", it is used to describe a past tense with continuous, incomplete, or coincident aspect.

Also, if you know any details on its evolution, that would be very helpful. For those unfamiliar with the term "imperfect", it is used to describe a past tense with continuous, incomplete, or coincident aspect.

--------------------------------------
Yes, I know it's not a Romance language. That's why I'm trying to compare it to Romance languages in that respect.

Answer 1

I wish you had asked about English because I could answer the question then. I'm not yet familiar enough with the grammar of German to give you a good answer.

I think you might come across a couple of problems while searching for this information, though:
1. The usage of the tenses in Romance languages isn't yet completely understood. While we claim to have a pretty good understanding of how the preterite/imperfect contrast manifests itself in, say, Spanish and French, I think probably the question is still open about how native speakers actually use them. So you might come across different accounts of what they mean in those languages. That would make it difficult to find a structure that has the same function in German.

2. Don't be fooled by the tenses in German that are constructed in the same way, either. In German, for example, the present perfect construction is often used for the same function that the simple past is used for in English. So you can't compare the constructions straight across; you must look for the functions they are doing. I think this is what you have in mind.

3. Native speakers of German probably wouldn't be able to tell you, since native speakers of a language don't usually have conscious knowledge of the way their language works (or if they do, it's often erroneous). Perhaps an easier way to get this information from native speakers of German would be to give them a situation where they would want to use that structure, and then see what they use. For example, you could ask a German-speaking friend to answer a question like, "How did you play your favorite game when you were a kid?" and then just listen to the answer. Maybe you'll discover what you're looking for.

4. As I said in my other answer, this might be a good question for LINGUISTList, but do your homework first so you know how to put it.

Answer 2

Hi!
I'm not sure if I can help you, because I don't speak any Romance languages, but as you have an imperfect tense in English as well, I'll try to compare it to that.
You mean something like "I have been doing my homework for 3 hours (,but I'm not done yet)."? Right?
Well, in German we do not exactly have a similar tense, because in this case we would say "Ich mache meine Hausaufgaben seit 3 Stunden (,bin aber noch nicht fertig)." So actually we are using the present tense, but the word that shows we are not done yet is "seit", which in English literally means "since". Hmm, this is a bit hard to describe. OK, I'll put it this way: if you don't use an exact period of time, the German answer will not tell you whether the action is done or incomplete. So in English "I have been doing homework" would be sufficient information to show it's still being done. The German answer "Ich habe Hausaufgaben gemacht" doesn't tell you at all, whether they are finished or not.

Also the answer to "What have you been doing for the last 3 hours?" would differ from the English answer "I have been doing my homework". In German you would say "Ich habe meine Hausaufgaben gemacht." So it would be past tense, BUT it doesn't say anything about the fact of them being completely done by that time or not. Compared to English it's not really accurate.
So as a matter of fact we don't even have a possibility to ASK any questions that would implicate the incompleteness of an action. We can only ask "Was hast Du in den letzten 3 Stunden getan?" which actually means "What did you do in the last 3 hours?"
So the question as such suggests that the action is complete. If the answering person wants to give more information, like they're not done yet, they would have to say "Ich habe Hausaufgaben gemacht, bin aber noch nicht fertig." That's why I put ",but I'm not done yet" in the beginning of my comment in brackets, because in English you don't need to add it to the sentence to show you're not done yet. Whereas in German that wouldn't be enough, you have to give additional information to make clear you're not done yet - you literally have to SAY it.
Or you can basically ignore the fact that you have been asked about the last 3 hours and just use the past tense and say "Ich mache Hausaufgaben." - "I'm doing homework."

German language can be quite tricky, but is definitely incomplete as such, I think! ;)

Actually when I started to learn English Grammar, I was quite impressed that you can describe an incomplete, continuous action simply by constructing a different tense type.

I hope this helps you a little. :)

Answer 3

Other people have handled the "Romance" = "from Roman" question. As for gender, I've gradually come to realize that English is one of the few languages that doesn't have gender. It's not just the ones that descended from Latin. Russian has gender. German, our cousin language, has gender. Old English had gender. In some weird way we lost gender in the process of becoming modern English, despite the fact that modern English was a merger of two languages that both had gender (the Old English spoken by the native tribes, and the Old French of the invading Normans).

Answer 4

German does have an imperfect tense, which however is mainly used in literature and not in spoken conversation anymore. In other words, the imperfect tense in German is obsolescent. When people want to refer to an action in the past, completed or not, they just use the perfect tense indiscriminately nowadays. Just as in English, there are two types of verbs in German, i. e. regular and irregular verbs. The regular verbs add -te to the stem in order to form the imperfect tense, whereas the forms of the irregular verbs can take any shape or form, again just like in English.

Answer 5

I vaguely remember it is very similar to Danish and/or English.
Try asking on the German site in the Answers International section at the bottom of the page.

Answer 6

German is not a romance language. It sounds like a large machine factory that runs badly

Answer 7

[Just remembered my answer was incorrect, I'll leave it to someone who knows what they're on about].