Breakdown of Haben Sie das Zimmer aufgeräumt?
Sie
you (formal)
haben
to have
das Zimmer
the room
aufräumen
to clean up / to tidy
Questions & Answers about Haben Sie das Zimmer aufgeräumt?
How is the past participle aufgeräumt formed?
It comes from the separable verb aufräumen (to clean up). To form the past participle of a separable verb, we put ge between the prefix (auf) and the verb stem (räum). Because it is a regular verb, it ends with a t, giving us aufgeräumt.
Why is aufgeräumt at the very end of the sentence?
In the German Perfekt tense, the helping verb (Haben) and the past participle (aufgeräumt) form a bracket around the rest of the sentence. The helping verb goes at the beginning to make a yes/no question, and the past participle must be placed at the very end.
The translation starts with "Did", but the German sentence starts with Haben (Have). Why?
English uses "did" as a helper word to ask questions in the past tense, but German does not do this. Instead, conversational German uses the Perfekt tense to talk about the past. Translated word-for-word, this asks: Have you the room cleaned up?
Could Sie also mean "they" in this sentence?
The verb form Haben works for both "they" and the formal "you" (singular or plural). However, because Sie is capitalized here in the middle of the sentence, we know for sure it means the formal "you". If it were lowercase (sie), it would mean "they".