Breakdown of Gestern sind wir schnell zum Park gelaufen.
sein
to be
schnell
fast, quickly
wir
we
der Park
the park
Questions & Answers about Gestern sind wir schnell zum Park gelaufen.
Why do we use sind instead of haben? I thought we use haben for the past tense.
In the German spoken past tense (Perfekt), verbs that show a change of location or state use sein (to be) as their helper verb instead of haben (to have). Because gelaufen (ran) describes moving from one place to another, we must use sind.
Why does the sentence say sind wir instead of wir sind?
In German, the conjugated verb must always be the second idea in a standard sentence. Because we put Gestern (Yesterday) in the first position to emphasize when it happened, the verb sind takes the second position. The subject wir (we) gets bumped to the third position.
Why is gelaufen at the very end of the sentence?
When you form the Perfekt tense, the helper verb (sind) goes in the second position, but the past participle (gelaufen) is always kicked to the very end of the sentence. This creates a bracket that holds the rest of the sentence together.
What exactly is zum in this sentence?