All German Modal Verbs in Simple Past (Präteritum)

in the german language we do have six modal verbs six modal verbs and in this video i'm going to teach you i'm going to show you how you can use them in preteritum was is preteritum preteritum is the simple past as you might know usually especially in spoken language in german we use the perfect tense the present perfect tense that's perfect but there are certain verbs which we almost only use in preteritum in simple past those are sein und haben sein zum beispiel ich war und haben ich hatte in simple past in preteritum plus also those six model verbs so whenever you want to talk about the past using a model verb you will have let's look at the grammar a little quick now what we have here we have können conjugated can which is the model verb and we have singen which is the main verb das hauptverb and this is the thing about model verbs you always have a model verb which you conjugate and then at the end of the sentence you have the main verb which is an infinite infinitive form the original form now how is it about this preteritum how does it look like this it's actually pretty much the same except that the conjugation is different monica konnte gut singen she could sing well so again we have the model verb on the second position conjugated verb and then singen is the main verb at the end of the sentence so the only thing that changes you have to change the conjugation of the model verb when using it in preteritum can or be able to the present tense conjugation in presence important model verbs are irregular verbs in especially in the singular form of the conjugation now how does it look for preteritum ich konnte du konntest er sie es konnte wir konnten ihr konntet sie konnten das ist die konjugation im präteritum machen wir ein paar beispiele wir fangen an mit ich ich konnte schon mit drei jahren schwimmen ich konnte schon mit drei jahren oder mit drei schwimmen i could i was able to swim when i was three ein beispiel mit du konntest du mit vier jahren lesen konntest du mit vier you can actually drop this jahren did you know how to read at the age of four could you were you able to answer the last question is want again present tense conjugation irregular preteritum ich wollte du wolltest er sie es wollte wir wollten ihr wolltet sie sie wollten and as you can see i put the endings in red why because they are all the same endings for all model verbs in preteritum so usually you have these verbs them and vol and then you add this so this is gonna be the same endings for all the model verbs i wanted to visit my grandma last week probably i didn't go why didn't film want to talk to you yesterday the children did not want to eat pizza komisch that's weird right here just a small side note i used a lot of negative sentences this has a reason because positive sentences are quite easier they are easier but this negative sentence with this problem with this nicht the position of nicht so a lot of my examples will be negative i don't want to sound negative or something and not at all but it's just to you get used to make negative sentences to hear them more often so you will have less problem when using when doing a or when negating a sentence have to not must is important it's have to you have to do something unregulmässig and then by spieler i always had to wash the dishes when i was a child must nadia had to work late last night if you want to know more about how to use comparative and superlative for adjectives how to build them there is a card up here on top did you have to work overtime again yesterday is to do or to work over time and dürfen is allowed to to be allowed to unregulmässig by spiel i was allowed to travel abroad alone when i was 16 sleep over somewhere were you allowed to sleep over at a friend's house when you were a kid or when you were a child deine kinder is always this used to talk about the past but further down the road so it's like more like back in the days how long were your kids allowed to stay out in the past when they were young and here a small side note as well those are not common used for preteritum so the one the first four ones we had those are important in preteritum mögen and especially sollen is not really common used but still possible so we also gonna do it mögen now preteritum here looks quite different there's something you have to memorize mochte i did not like to eat vegetables now here you see okay there is this mögen but there is no main verb the reason is mögen even though it is a model verb we usually use it together with a noun like here and therefore we use it as a main verb already so mögen you can use as a main verb this means you don't have to have a second verb at the end it is possible and you could say but sounds a little bit weird and it's not common used so more common just mögen as a house let me know down in the question which food you didn't like as a child supposed to preteritum i was supposed to go shopping yesterday we were supposed to practice every day last week here just again small side note why it's not common to use sollen in preteritum because sollen as a model verb is usually used to give somebody a suggestion so this sollen is used in most situations to give somebody a suggestion when we talk about the past that we were supposed to practice every day we probably would use müssen more often we had to do this it's not that common to use it in preteritum when giving a suggestion plural the students were supposed to write a short text for today maybe two teachers are talking to each other one is the substitute and the other is the main teacher and he asked him what was the homework and then the substitute teacher says because first we do our bonus tip a small tip and it's like helping you how to build how to create the preteritum of those model verbs what we do we actually just look at the infinitive form and then we also look at the preteritum form so the infinitive and the original form and then the preteritum form and as you can see we always have the same letter on the second position so the only difference and this is important the umlaut and these two dots on top of the o they disappear so können becomes konnte wollen becomes wollte same same there's no umlaut müssen becomes musste because there is an umlaut so again get rid of the umlaut dürfen same same becomes the second letter is the same it's just this mochte is pretty irregular und sollen is the same becomes sollte and if you are in a one level or in the beginning of learning german and you think maybe those model verbs in present tense i also don't really get them properly we have a complete playlist right up here about each and every model verb six small videos in detail about all those model verbs i hope you learned something i hope you like this video bis zum nächsten mal auf wiedersehen und bye