war and hatte: The Simple Past of sein and haben
Learn the simple past forms war and hatte, and why German speakers prefer them over the Perfekt whenever they talk about being and having in the past.
One small word instead of three
You know the Perfekt as the everyday past tense of spoken German. For two verbs, however, hardly anyone uses it: sein and haben. Instead of the long Perfekt forms ist gewesen and hat gehabt, German speakers reach for the short simple past (Präteritum) forms: war and hatte.
Ich war gestern im Kino is what everyone actually says — Ich bin gestern im Kino gewesen is grammatically fine but sounds heavy and slightly bookish. The same goes for hatte: Wir hatten viel Spaß, not Wir haben viel Spaß gehabt.
This is not a new tense system to learn. It is two very frequent verbs with their own shortcut, and mastering that shortcut instantly makes your past-tense German sound natural.
Ich war gestern im Kino.
I was at the cinema yesterday.
Wir hatten viel Spaß.
We had a lot of fun.
Wie war dein Wochenende?
How was your weekend?
The standard Monday-morning question — always with war, never with the Perfekt.
The forms of war
The paradigm is short: ich war, du warst, er/sie/es war, wir waren, ihr wart, sie/Sie waren. Two things deserve attention. First, the ich-form and the er-form are identical — war, with no ending at all. This is a general feature of the German simple past, and you will meet it again with hatte and with the modal verbs.
Second, the plural forms simply add the endings you would expect: -en for wir and sie/Sie, -t for ihr. Say the six forms out loud a few times until the row ich war, du warst, er war runs off your tongue without thinking.
Questions work exactly as at A1: put the verb first for yes/no questions (Warst du ...?) or after the question word (Wo wart ihr ...?).
Warst du schon einmal in Wien?
Have you ever been to Vienna?
Er war letzte Woche krank.
He was ill last week.
The er-form has no ending — just war, like the ich-form.
Wo wart ihr am Samstag?
Where were you (plural) on Saturday?
Meine Eltern waren zu Hause.
My parents were at home.
The forms of hatte
hatte follows the same rhythm: ich hatte, du hattest, er/sie/es hatte, wir hatten, ihr hattet, sie/Sie hatten. Once again the ich-form and the er-form are identical, and once again the endings on the other forms are the familiar -st, -en and -t.
Remember from A1 that German uses haben in many fixed expressions where English uses "to be": Hunger haben, Durst haben, Zeit haben, Glück haben. All of these move into the past with hatte: Ich hatte Hunger — I was hungry. Ich hatte keine Zeit — I did not have time.
That makes hatte one of the most useful words in the whole language for everyday explanations: no time, no money, no appointment, a headache, bad luck. One form, endless excuses.
Ich hatte keine Zeit.
I had no time.
Hattest du Hunger?
Were you hungry?
German says "to have hunger" — the A1 haben expressions all take hatte in the past.
Wir hatten gestern einen Termin.
We had an appointment yesterday.
Telling a simple story
war and hatte are the scene-setters of German storytelling. When you describe a trip, a party or a bad day, you paint the background with war and hatte — what things were like, what you had — and you report the actions with the Perfekt from the previous lesson: what you did, where you went.
Das Wetter war schön, und wir sind an den See gefahren. The first half sets the scene, the second half moves the story forward. Listen to German speakers talking about their holidays and you will hear this pattern constantly: war, war, hatte — then a burst of Perfekt.
Try it with your own last holiday: two sentences of background with war and hatte, then two or three actions in the Perfekt. That small recipe is enough to tell a complete, natural-sounding story at A2.
Das Wetter war schön, und wir sind an den See gefahren.
The weather was nice, and we drove to the lake.
Background with war, action with the Perfekt.
Ich hatte Kopfschmerzen und bin früh ins Bett gegangen.
I had a headache and went to bed early.
Der Urlaub war toll, aber das Hotel hatte kein Restaurant.
The holiday was great, but the hotel had no restaurant.
Check yourself
Quick checks on this lesson. Get at least three quarters right to mark it as completed.
Fill in the gap
Gestern ich sehr müde.
Hint: Simple past of sein, ich-form — no ending.
Practise what you learned