Präteritum of Weak Verbs (-te) | German Grammar

The good news about the Präteritum is that the weak verbs — the large, regular majority — follow one clean, exception-free recipe. Once you learn the pattern below, you never have to memorize another weak past form again. All the genuine memorization effort in the German past tense goes into the strong verbs; the weak ones are a free lunch.

The recipe: stem + -te- + endings

To form the Präteritum of a weak verb:

Take the stem (the infinitive minus -en): machen → mach-.
Insert the past marker -te-: mach- → machte-.
Add the personal ending.

The endings are: — / -st / — / -n / -t / -n. (Note: the ich and er/sie/es forms have no ending after -te-.)

Person	Ending	machen → machte	English
ich	-te	ich machte	I made/did
du	-test	du machtest	you made (informal)
er/sie/es	-te	er machte	he made
wir	-ten	wir machten	we made
ihr	-tet	ihr machtet	you made (plural, informal)
sie/Sie	-ten	sie machten	they/you made (formal)

Er machte das Fenster auf und atmete tief durch.

He opened the window and took a deep breath. (narrative)

Wir spielten den ganzen Nachmittag im Garten.

We played in the garden all afternoon. (narrative)

The ich/er identity: a quirk worth flagging

Notice something the present tense never does: the ich form and the er/sie/es form are identical — both are machte. In the present, these differ sharply (ich mache vs er macht), so English speakers expect a different third-person form and often invent one. There isn't one. Context (the subject pronoun, the surrounding sentence) tells you who did it.

	Present	Präteritum
ich	mache	machte
er/sie/es	macht	machte

Ich kaufte das Brot, und sie kaufte den Käse.

I bought the bread, and she bought the cheese. (narrative)

Damals wohnte ich in Köln, und mein Bruder wohnte in Bonn.

Back then I lived in Cologne, and my brother lived in Bonn.

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The ich and er/sie/es Präteritum forms are always the same for every German verb — weak, strong, or modal (ich machte / er machte, ich ging / er ging, ich war / er war). Stop looking for a separate third-person form; it doesn't exist in the past.

The linking -e-: stems ending in -t or -d

If the stem already ends in -t or -d, adding -te would jam two t-sounds together (arbeit- + -te → arbeitte), which is unpronounceable. German inserts a linking -e- to keep the past marker audible: stem + -ete-.

So arbeiten ("to work") → arbeit- → arbeitete, and reden ("to talk") → red- → redete.

Person	arbeiten → arbeitete	reden → redete
ich	arbeitete	redete
du	arbeitetest	redetest
er/sie/es	arbeitete	redete
wir	arbeiteten	redeten
ihr	arbeitetet	redetet
sie/Sie	arbeiteten	redeten

Sie arbeitete damals als Lehrerin in einem kleinen Dorf.

At the time she worked as a teacher in a small village. (narrative)

Wir redeten stundenlang über alte Zeiten.

We talked for hours about old times.

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This is the same linking-e logic you already know from the present tense (er arbeitet, er redet) and from weak participles (gearbeitet). One phonetic rule, three places it surfaces. Learn it once.

Six common weak verbs in the Präteritum

These all follow the recipe exactly — no surprises.

Infinitive	ich/er form	English
kaufen	kaufte	to buy
spielen	spielte	to play
wohnen	wohnte	to live/reside
lernen	lernte	to learn
fragen	fragte	to ask
arbeiten	arbeitete	to work (t-stem → -ete)

Der kleine Junge fragte seine Mutter, warum der Himmel blau ist.

The little boy asked his mother why the sky is blue. (narrative)

Sie lernte drei Jahre lang Klavier, bevor sie aufgab.

She learned piano for three years before she gave up. (narrative)

Remember the register lesson from the Präteritum overview: these weak forms belong mostly to writing and storytelling. In casual speech you would usually say Ich habe gefragt, Ich habe gelernt (Perfekt) instead. Drill the weak Präteritum so you can read German fluently and write narrative — not so you can use it at the dinner table.

English contrast

English forms its regular past with -ed (work → worked) and adds no personal endings at all — "I worked, you worked, she worked" are identical across the board. German weak verbs are similar in spirit (a regular suffix, here -te) but, unlike English, they still carry personal endings in du, wir, ihr, sie (machtest, machten, machtet, machten). The one place German matches English's no-ending simplicity is ich and er/sie/es — and that overlap is exactly what trips learners into expecting a distinct third-person form.

Common mistakes

❌ Er machtet das Fenster auf.

Incorrect — invented a third-person ending; er takes the bare -te.

✅ Er machte das Fenster auf.

Correct — ich and er/sie/es are both just machte.

❌ Sie arbeitte in einem Büro.

Incorrect — missing the linking -e- after the t-stem.

✅ Sie arbeitete in einem Büro.

Correct — t-stems insert -ete-: arbeitete.

❌ Du machtst die Tür zu.

Incorrect — endings collide without -te-; needs -test.

✅ Du machtest die Tür zu.

Correct — the du form is stem + -te + -st = machtest.

❌ Wir redenten lange.

Incorrect — doubled marker; reden is a d-stem → redeten.

✅ Wir redeten lange.

Correct — d-stem takes the linking -e-: redeten.

❌ Ich gehte nach Hause.

Incorrect — gehen is a strong verb (ging), not weak; you can't add -te.

✅ Ich ging nach Hause.

Correct — strong verbs change the vowel instead of adding -te.

Key takeaways

Weak Präteritum = stem + -te- + ending, fully regular: machte, machtest, machte, machten, machtet, machten.
The ich and er/sie/es forms are identical (machte) — there is no separate third-person form in the past.
Stems in -t / -d insert a linking -e-: arbeitete, redete (same logic as the present and the participle).
It never needs memorization — once learned, it's automatic. Save your effort for the strong verbs.
Use it mainly for reading and writing; in casual speech, most weak verbs appear in the Perfekt instead.

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